Fractalfire

This next one is about stuff Brandon has publicly stated about SA6, so if you don't want to know that, don't open:

Why exactly did you feel you needed 19 question marks to ask that?

Speaking of which, now that Odium bit the bullet and picked up two shards, what's to stop him from trying to pick up previously shattered ones too? He seems very Ambitious and has Dominion over Roshar and he is Devoted in a twisted way. Plus, Odium shattered those Shards, so perhaps Taravangian knows how to undo that and claim them. So he isn't necessarily limited to two shards as Dalinar believes. Now that he can leave he can work on grabbing others -- perhaps up to five total.

Joking aside, I think it is surprisingly plausible. We were just shown that Honor (the Shard) is a "child" who can potentially change slightly. Maybe the shard of Odium is no different? I don't really see them reforming Adonalsium at the end of this series. Since Odium will drive any new vessel to do the same thing eventually, some other solution is necessary. In a book where mental health is increasingly becoming the central theme, it sounds completely plausible it will figure into the solution. At any rate, I am fully convinced there will be long and detailed group therapy sessions with the Heralds and other main characters throughout books 6-10.

And now, another episode of Bad Therapy, starring Therapydin, Herald of Therapy. Therapydin: “Rule number one, Shard of Odium. You’re not a thing. You are a person. Ok, well, you sort of are a thing, but not just a thing. Rule number two, you get to choose. And there’s a third rule Shard of Odium. You deserve to be happy.” Odium: "Well, I do like spreading warfare and strife and despising people." *plunges all inhabitants of planet into eternal torment* Therapydin: "Wait, no, not like that!"

Ironically, assuming you could establish a legislature that people cared about and listened to, opening up the government to elections is an extremely effective way to give highprinces power again. Remember, when the party system first formed in the English parliament after the English civil war, who were the two parties? That's right, the Whigs (who wanted constitutional monarchy) but also the Tories (the party of monarchists), born directly of the roundheads and the cavalier factions during the civil war. Similarly in France, various pro-monarchy factions in the legislature have attempted to reinstall monarchies (and were successful with, e.g. Napoleon III, who won the popular vote). It's a mistake to think all of the electorate will be uniformly pro-democracy in a previously monarchical system. Many will miss old stability or have stronger ties to their noble than they do to the rest of the nation, or dislike other policies of the pro-democratic leadership (witness the popular revolt of the Vendée peasants against the French Revolution and for the monarchy, driven in part by horror at the Parisian governments suppression of the Catholic Church and persecution of non-juring priests.) Currently, Alethkar is effectively in a military dictatorship (whatever it may call itself on paper). With elections, though, the high princes now have the chance to influence people... they have connections, money, loyal subjects, political causes and grievances they can exploit and so forth, all crucial for getting votes of a mostly illiterate and ill-informed, easily manipulated, frightened populace.

Having just read a history of the Tudors, Stuarts, and English Civil war, this is a foolish idea. You cannot just top down replace a government based on monarchical rule -- you are missing all of the institutions, the traditions of self-governance, and the expectations of continuity that make that possible. Realistically, what would happen is that this would immediately cause confusion, anarchy, and poor governance and the kingdom would dissolve into warring factions as the common people aligned with this or that leader and the elites try to grab the largest chunk of the pie. The suggestion that people would not rebel because of increased anarchy due to the desolation is just laughable -- that makes rebellion more likely, not less. Did the Russian revolution happening at the end stages of WWI make it more stable!? You already have armies with generals and troops on the field, many of whom will disagree and try to crush you, and people are desperate for good leadership. This is the worst possible time to cause political chaos. In fact, it is doubly worse since the people instituting it (Renarin, Jasnah) are seen as weak leaders or opposed to the religion of the people (incidentally, the same exact problems Louis XVI and James the II of England had). People forget that in the U.S. there was already effectively democratic governance (and had been for quite some time) before the revolution (Governors and state legislators). People knew who was in charge. Countries that did not have these traditions (France, England during the Stuarts, Russia) quickly dissolved into anarchy and military rule, which ultimately resulted in military dictatorships followed often by the return of the old monarchy. If she and Renarin (or Brandon) knew anything about the history of revolutions, Jasnah probably should have tried to install some sort of parliament first made up of the ruling elites and wealthy commoners, while maintaining power at the top to keep things in order. Then slowly let her ministers and officials take an increasing role while relegating herself to increasingly ceremonial roles. (Easy to do for a female monarch, as they will already expect her not to do much. In fact, this is pretty much how Queen Anne guided the transition to constitutional monarchy in England, although the early wars, parliament, and social conditions had already set the stage for her.) I'm sure, of course, that this will all work out hunky-dory, kind of like those old communist sci fi utopias where somehow everyone is okay with being assigned their job by government Bureaucrats, but that just goes to show that this is fiction. You can have people fly or be immortal or smash through walls, and you can also have monarchies seamlessly transition into representative democracies that have never previously existed at the mere word of the distrusted female atheist philosopher-queen and the weak, disliked prince. (Ask some of the real life brilliant philosopher kings and queens how well their enlightened rationalist reforms worked out for them sometime... As Holy Roman Emperor Joseph the II would reply ""Here lies a ruler who, despite his best intentions, was unsuccessful in all of his endeavors." )

My complaint is that the therapy-speak is a) fundamentally atrocious writing, b) immersion breaking (both because it is cliche gunk and because it feels anachronistic), c) wrecks Kaladin's characterization, and d) ruins many otherwise good scenes by destroying the dramatic tension. I've heard some people argue that it is bad intentionally because Kaladin is new to therapy. Honestly, based on the writing so far, I'm not actually convinced Brandon can write a good therapy scene. (He seems to default to cliches, and tellingly he can't even take his own efforts seriously! He is constantly poking fun at the attempts.) That said, even if Brandon was intentionally trying to write this poorly -- why do that? One of the first rules of writing is that making a "good story" comes first! If writing Kaladin as bad at therapy results in this great of a decline in the dialogue, it was a poor decision, regardless of how "realistic" it may be. I think this is fundamentally the problem. (Though I would dispute that what we saw in books 1-4 was "therapy" as opposed to "character development." ) With apologies to the therapist in the chat, I think therapy -- as an explicit practice by a therapist -- does not fit well in a high fantasy book. Even were I particularly interested in mental health (which I'm not), it would be very hard to fit therapy in a good fantasy story. As an analogy, I am interested in economics. However, it would be really annoying if Aragorn suddenly decided "I am going to be Middle Earth's first economist" -- then proceeded to reinvent a very modern view of economics, which was simultaneously extremely shallow with poorly informed cliches that sound like they were ripped from TikTok. Trying to do "therapy" while tramping around the countryside on a quest is just bad plotting (not to mention boring).

Good god, it somehow gets worse!? I'm only halfway through this brick -- I stopped about three weeks ago when the Kaladin therapy speak got so ridiculously bad ("I deserve peace. I deserve to be happy." What's next, Live Laugh Love as the fifth oath?) that it was either stop for a while or throw the book across the room and risk mortal injury to poor bystanders. So here I am on the forum snooping to avoid reading about more spren genitals, or worse another conversation with the Sword of Death by Cringe. The humor plus the therapy talk has reminded me of a quote from Andrew Lang about terrible victorian fairy stories: At this point, I'm honestly not sure if I want to finish this or not. I'm told the second part picks up, but this does not seem promising.

This calls for Cinnamon rolls. And coffee Lots and lots of coffee. My poor students will never get their HW graded at this rate...

Correct. I got an email about it, then it downloaded to my kindle a few minutes ago.

Yay! Just got it. So if you have an Amazon Kindle order, it probably just was sent to you.

Forgot about that; thanks!

Could you please provide quotes or Wob for the shardplate statement? Any sources you've seen that I haven't would be nice to know about. I checked to see whether we had any confirmation that shardplate could be summoned before posting and found nothing solid in either coppermind or arcanum. The best I saw was that ancient shardbearers could instantaneously retract their visors, but that isn't proof that the armor can be summoned. The fact that dead shardblades can be summoned, but not (as far as we know) plate, seems to imply that there may have been differences. I see you are correct about the spren being unable to form two discontinuous objects. I should have double-checked before posting.

Hmm... An interesting idea. I'm inclined to think the radiant spren could form into either a bow or an arrow, but thus far, we've seen no solid evidence that they can form into two, discontinuous shapes. Also, since they only seem able to form metallic objects, I don't know whether the bow would be able to actually be drawn. However, we know that the spren can form relatively small objects (i.e. shardforks) which could hypothetically be shot. I see nothing that would stop radiants from simply shooting a Shard Arrow at an enemy, then resummoning and reshooting it after the damage is done. Given this possibility, there seems to be little need for forming a shard-bow rather than using a normal bow. The main advantage of shard-weapons (their ability to cut through anything) would be underutilized in a Shardbow. (On the other hand, such a bow would not wear out, but this would only be a minor concern.) If you were also able to make arrows using lesser spren, then I suppose you would gain a slight advantage in being able to fire more arrows without having to wait for your Radiant spren to return (though you would have to able to reload and shoot awfully fast for that to make a difference). However, given that plate appears to not be summonable like shardblades, I'm inclined to think this would be a very bad idea. Sure, you could send armor piercing projectiles at your enemies, but those uninjured could then pick up and use those weapons. I think this would be poor strategy, since you would be handing them some of the only weapons that could pierce your own armor. In addition, if such arrows existed, they would be very powerful weapons, capable of potentially harming shard-bearers. They would also likely be difficult to destroy. Wouldn't we expect at least some to persist to the modern day? Personally, I speculate that shardplate is forged or made in some way, possibly out of lesser spren, and that this ability is granted by the fourth oath (for most orders). Thus, I'm inclined to agree with your speculation that such arrows could be made. I'm just not sure if the Radiants would want to use them. Slight Tangent: Out of curiosity, does anyone think that the following Words of Radiance epigraph could be referring to making shardplate? Some have suggested that this "making" is referring to "making judgments that separate the innocent from the guilty;" however, I'm disinclined to think "their rivals" (particularly Windrunners and Dustbringers) would agree that their judgments were good. In addition, the following Word of Brandon says they do not have such an ability.

Realistic Supernatural Warfare Ideally, I would like to see how supernatural warfare works and how this effects things like tactics, strategy, supply-lines, goals, etc. I want to be shocked by Dalinar's military genius, horrified by Odium's countermove, and surprised when both plans fall apart. Really, the moment I'm looking for is the moment I got from the previous books where I go "OH, of course, that's how a magical war would go, why didn't I anticipate [exciting strategy/maneuver/important goal] before?!" Maps! Detailed explanations of battle strategy. How does the world adjust to technological warfare? Is it like WWI, when strategy was forced to change dramatically? Kaladin with Oroden (and Jasnah with Gavinor) I freely confess I am a sucker for family relationships in stories, particularly older brother/younger brother stories. Oroden and Gavinor are probably too young for too much to happen, but I do hope to see some touching scenes! Fabrial Science How does it work? What will we learn? What experiments will our main characters perform? I'm really looking forward to seeing some Sanderson-level ingenuity here. Can Radiant-spren work Fabrials? Do they have different effects? Ecological wonders I always look forward to the scenes in each book where new plants/animals and ecologies appear. The full aliveness of Roshar and all its wonders, as well as Shallan's drawings, are what made me fall in love with the Stormlight Archives and I want to see more! -- lots, lots more. I'm hoping to see more life cycles explained in this story. I have a feeling that there are some major, important ecological patterns that we haven't learned about. (Why don't we know what chasm fiends become when they pupate? Why was the ecological devastation of Aimia so important? Are there any animals with more complicated gemheart functions, like Singers? Does Roshar have an equivalent to the cat? In a world that's mostly water, what do the oceanic ecosystems look like?! What is crem, actually? Readers demand detailed answers to these important questions! Khriss I'd like to see her randomly and mysteriously walk in on Hoid, just to see him splutter in confusion for once. A Spren Being Born How precisely does this work? How do new "species" of spren emerge? More concretely, I would like to see if it's possible to cross two different types of spren. Do spren fall in love? Specifically, I would like to know if it's okay to vicariously continue my desire for a Kaladin-Shallan relationship by shipping Pattern and Syl. More on Chemoarish or Dai-Gonarthis I'm hoping to be horrifically surprised at an unfortunate moment. Adolin and Shallan having a marital spat (and making up) I don't buy the happy ever after in book three, so I'm anticipating problems that make people conclude the relationship is doomed, only for Adolin and Shallan to decide to work things out rather than just giving up. I want a twist up of the typical romance pattern. I'm hoping for a tale of two people realizing they ran into a marriage too quickly and screwed it up, but rather than divorcing, decide to try to make it work even though they aren't perfect for each other. Something going terribly right for Odium This is the fourth book in a five book arc; if he doesn't have things go his way at the end of this one, I will consider it a bit of a let-down. Ideally, I would like to end the book with my hopes brutally crushed, wondering how it is even possible for the heroes to survive the latest disaster. The more terrible, the better. The Annihilation of a City Ideally, I would like to see magic unleashed at a terrible scale, making the events of the Recreance seem more credible. (I'd prefer we had time to explore the city and get to now it's inhabitants first, so it will hurt more.) Jasnah Scheming I want to be impressed by Jasnah's cunning and clever plotting and see her out-maneuver everyone else in both politics and academics. New Forms for the Singers; Deeper Insight into the Rhythms Since this is a Singer book, I'm hoping to find out more about their culture, particularly their biology and history. Epic Rosharan Mythology Amazing myths; epic tales of wonder, with a hint of mystery -- preferably something from the Singers, or the Horneaters. I really love epic poetry and I think the Singers have to have some good poem-songs, so I'm hoping for something amazing. Renarin Point of View Chapters I don't know what to make of Renarin; he gets so little voice compared to the other characters that he's mostly a mystery to me. I don't understand his motivations or desires at all and I want to know more. Now that the big reveal has happened, hopefully he will become a bigger focus. I would very much like to see him make a critical academic discovery about fabrials that everyone else overlooks completely. On a side note, I want to hear more from Glys too... he doesn't have any personality yet. King Lunamor Rock the First You cannot make cryptic hints about a king uniting the peaks and not have it happen. Rock is the obvious choice! Long live King Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor. More Kaladin, Bridge Four, and Syl I hope Kaladin continues to have a critical role in the plot and that we see him continue to grow. I'm hoping to see him adjusting from "Captain" to general in the war, being forced to take on more responsibility. I also hope to see him save someone important to him in this book. Have Venli move from unlikable to loved protagonist This one is critical. Currently, Venli is at 0.75 Moashes on my unlikability scale. She betrayed her people and her sister and was a prideful and shortsighted fool. I didn't even look for any redeeming features in her, because I didn't really expect her to be a main character. I hope by the end of the book that I will grow to like her as a person and she will move to at least 0.4 Kaladins. I hope to see her choices as a tragedy and less as a betrayal. I hope to see some touching moments between Venli, Eshonai, and their mother (and father?). I do want to see some heroism, and, since her order is focused on exploration, some amazing adventures. The Dawning Realization that the Twist was Oh so Obvious... and I Missed It...Again Otherwise, I would be forced to conclude that I have accidentally picked up a book by some other author.

For me, the audiobook was somewhat jarring. I love the voices of the readers and how they change their voice for each character is extremely talented; however, this often clashed with the voice I imagined for the character. At other times, they added different inflection and emotions than I had envisioned. I think the most egregious were the scenes with Dalinar and Navani, where their "flirting" came across as extremely overdone and annoying, primarily because of the way the reader (I believe Michael Kramer) was interpreting her lines. (Every time Navani said "Oh Dalinar" in that overdone way I wanted to scream.) By necessity, reading by someone will add their own interpretation, emotions, and "acting skills" to that character, which can change the way the book feels and even completely change the meaning of a scene. Personally, I think I prefer books that are read without trying to make "voices" for each character. I would prefer a nice, unchanging voice, as when someone who is not a super-talented voice actor reads a book. Then, I can simply tune out the parts that make it "their voice" and substitute my own imagination, as I normally do when reading. That being said, I only think this was a problem because I originally read Oathbringer rather than listened to it. Had I listened to audiobooks from the beginning, it would not have been so difficult to stay in the story, because I would have associated those voices with the characters and I wouldn't have had a different interpretation of their emotions.

Oh my... I just read his wikipedia page. I knew people were cruel, but I never realized it was that bad. It sounds like the fan backlash might have completely ruined his life. It certainly crushed his acting career, it appears, his spirit. That's depressing... It's kind of like a real life version of innocent kid becomes Vader... except instead of the dark side of the Force tempting him to villainy its the Dark side of the internet making his life miserable and leading to an unstable mind. (Then again, his mental illness and acting career may be casually unrelated, but according to Wikipedia, being bullied and using drugs can increase risk.) I think I'm going to be more careful in the future when I criticize things I dislike. It's one thing to point out flaws; it's another to be hateful or spiteful, and looking back, I haven't been the nicest when reviewing certain films/books...

Honestly, I can never really understand the hate they received. Yes, they have flaws, but they were overall interesting and, to me, Star Wars would be unimaginably different without them -- to the point where I would not find it a series worth much contemplation without them. Growing up, I saw both series at once, and liked them more than the originals (which have not aged well, in some respects). The ancient-looking computers on the death-star looked silly, the duels were weak, and the battles were less interesting. Some of the plotting also comes across as a bit melodramatic... particularly Luke trying to redeem Vader and the Emperor "tempting" him to the darkside (did he actually expect that to work?!). For someone born after they were released, I grew up knowing all the twists before I watched them, so there was never anything particularly surprising to be had, though intellectually I know it was different for those who first watched it. I always thought the duel between Ben and Vader was rather ridiculous looking, particularly in comparison to the duel between Qui Gon, Maul, and Obi Wan in the Phantom Menace. The scale in the prequels is grander and explores more unique worlds while also giving us insight into the Jedi Order. In contrast, the originals show a depressing, monolithically human future that to me was inherently less interesting as a work of science fiction. I know, intellectually, that the prequels have acting issues and plotting issues and also that I really should find Jar Jar more annoying.... but I still enjoy Count Dooku, Obi Wan and Qui Gon, Mace Windu, the Battle of Geonosis, the Duel of the Fates, Naboo, the Senate on Coruscant, and so many, many other aspects. I really just can't bring myself to dislike them, despite the flaws. I asked my brother what he thought, I think he summarized the main issues in the prequels pretty well: the graphics were somewhat bad because they just hadn't advanced far enough yet, Jar Jar was a mistake, and Lucas apparently can't write romance well. Remove those three issues and I think most of my criticisms would vanish. Then again, this perspective is also colored somewhat by the fact that I read books and comics about star wars and the most interesting ones were about Obi Wan and Qui Gon Jinn, which were of course, set in a prequel-era republic with a functional Jedi Order, or else clone wars era books, which covered the struggles of the Jedi as they tried to stick to their values while fighting a war... In contrast, just as Luke basically fails at reviving the Jedi Order in the sequels, in the books I read, nothing he ever did post battle of Yavin ever amounted to much. The galaxy stayed broken, the Jedi never truly recovered their old glory, and they were always fighting the Remnants of the Empire -- I always thought they were less interesting to read and I stayed away from them.

Brandon's newsletter contains what I believe is the fullest version (you can sign up on his website). Alternatively, the first two entries on this Arcanum page are fragments of the whole: https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=lirin

For some reason I got the impression that Odium, as a mortal, was shorter than average. Another possibility is that, since he is trapped on Braize, Odium's influence on Roshar actually is fairly weak and small; Dalinar just doesn't realize that till he has another point of comparison.

Which makes me wonder, what is Odium's endgame here, precisely? Is he just going to put the Singers back in charge? That seems rather tame for a Shard of hatred. He can't force them all back to Shinovar -- there isn't enough room for a population that large. Will he just start executing them all once he gets enough rounded up in concentration camps? Killing off all the people she's "cultivated" sounds like an excellent way to rile Cultivation. Shame on me. How could I ever forget the Crustacean Hulks of Unusually Lumpy Largeness?! Well, obviously Odium should just run back to Braize now. His doom was inevitable I tell you, inevitable!

Well, now we know where Kaladin gets it from. I mean, I don't see why it couldn't be lost in a year, even if Radiants were involved. Right now, Odium's forces more voidbinders and, with the Skybreakers, more full Radiants than Dalinar has squires. I don't think there are enough windrunners in the world to perform an evacuation that large, but, even if there were, how do you know that's not what Kaladin is about to do in the next chapter? (Edit: Nevermind, toaster demonstrates why that's not such a great idea.)

Even if Dalinar and co. were involved, aren't the initial losses inevitable? The situation currently: Odium has his magic users at nearly full power. The fused et al. are still the same experienced, powerful warriors they always were and are functionally immortal, in addition to being backed up by odium-spren, 7/9 unmade, the order of Skybreakers, Taravangian, and Odium himself. As of book 3, Dalinar currently has less than a dozen full Radiants -- he doesn't even have representatives from all the orders yet, much less truly organized, well-trained orders -- and he has multiple theaters in which he must now campaign, of which Herdaz is only one. His coalition is still shaky and probably barely functional at the best of times. He does not even know the full capabilities of his own Radiants, much less the enemy's full capabilities and powers, whereas the enemy knows basically everything. He's in a losing position, fighting a war in which he has inferior Investiture-power, man-power, information, and organization compared to his foe. The only major advantages he has going for him are that Cultivation appears to have something up her sleeve, he has (somewhat) superior technology in the form of fabrials, and he controls a major fortification (that's currently broken, but whatever). Frankly, they should be losing now. Badly. It would take some incredible military genius to keep from being crushed, much less to turn the tide in their favor.

Unfortunately, Brandon seems to have a habit of using exact words, so you have to look carefully at the wording to be sure he was saying what you think he was saying. If he can get out with a technicality, he absolutely will. So I disagree that he has (clearly) stated that Odium was the third shard in that deathrattle. All we know for certain (unless there are WOBs of which I am unaware) is that he is the third shard on Roshar, but unfortunately, this does not forbid a lot of other possibilities. This came up in another thread where KandraAllomancer speculated that Honor and Cultivation had a child (called Unity) who would be able to draw on the powers of both of its "parental shards" -- in which case, Brandon could absolutely choose not to call it a separate "shard," even if it existed on Roshar in the past and had the power of one (or two!) shards. You'll notice he didn't say "Odium, Cultivation, and Honor were the three of sixteen," nor did he say "Odium is one of the three mentioned in the deathrattle", he said "Odium is the third shard ON ROSHAR." But what if another Shard was on Ashyn or Braize or if the third the deathrattle referred to wasn't technically another Shard (just like Patji is technically Autonomy or Harmony is technically two shards)? Maybe this is just an aluminum-hat theory, but personally, I think he's hiding something about this deathrattle with his word choice.