jamesbondsmith

There was a thread in the main Stormlight forum where people wrote up their ideas for how a movie trailer for each book would go. The spoiler period is still going on the main forum I think, so I thought I'd put an idea I had in this one. I tried not to give away too many major end-book spoilers. I chose a random year for the title, but I feel like 10th of October would be an appropriate date for a Stormlight Archive film (and it avoids the dd//mm/yy vs mm/dd/yy issue).

I think an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had something similar, and the other workers ended up disliking the super-strong person because they were paid by the hour, not by the job. I can imagine being able to sell the ability to do most things extremely efficiently would lead to an economy that focused on flat fees for completing a job as opposed to hourly wages. Seems like it would be geared more towards to customer than the worker.

I don't see how saying readers need to respect the fact that an author is a human being is gaslighting. Readers can have opinions on what's been published, but to flat out accuse him of lying about why he's writing one thing as opposed to another and expect him to jump onto exactly what you want like a typewriting monkey is a bit much. Let's just appreciate the fact that he's released the fourth novel in a planned 10 book series (each of which have been as long or longer than the entire Lord of the Rings series), a novella in the same series, as well as his other publications. This as a university lecturer with three kids who regularly communicates with the fans. He might write quickly enough to seem as if he's a machine, but he isn't one.

I feel like this article might be appropriate Neil Gaiman's Journal: Entitlement issues...

I think it could be fun if someone was trying to pull a Mistborn ending, but their target is having none of it and trying to run away/otherwise avoid it as best they can.

It does seem like it gets skipped over a lot, though. Is there any confirmation on how long Taln spent getting tortured as opposed to going full Rambo on Braize (or the Heralds generally)?

I see a lot of people talking about the Heralds being tortured constantly on Braize, but am I the only one who understood it as the Fused having to catch them first? I always assumed that the Heralds would fight, hide and resist until they were captured, and then the torture would start. Seeing Taln is the Herald of War and the one who trains soldiers, it would explain how he lasted so long if he just fought off the Fused and Voidspren for who knows how many years before finally being subjected to torture.

For a little bit I thought Eshonai had been turned into a spren and had gone into its gemheart.

Are the Shattering and the various Shards of Adonalsium a spoiler? Not the shards themselves, just the fact that they exist. One of the guys I work with has read part of the Cosmere (all Mistborn novels, Warbreaker, Elantris, Stormlight up to the end of Way of Kings but from his confused expression he hasn't even heard of Arcanum Unbounded, let alone read it), but he hasn't heard of Adonalsium.

Arguably, 'I will not kill to protect' is what has lead to squillions of people in the DC universe being in need of rescuing from the Joker or any of Batman's other enemies. If Kaladin had killed Moash when he first attacked Elhokar in WOR, then Elhokar, Teft, Phendorana and the unnamed Radiant he stabbed in the face would still be alive, not to mention the people he indirectly harmed through allying with Odium. I think it was Dalinar talking about Amaram when it was pointed out that imprisoning Shardbearers is pretty much impossible if you haven't forced them to break the bond to their Blade.

Post OB (even mid chapter when he kills Roshone), I could get behind the idea of Moash redemption. He killed the people who caused the deaths of the only family he knew. Sure, Elhokar became much more sympathetic, but Moash didn't know that. Then he killed a friend in order to devastate another friend enough to commit suicide, and now I want him to cop it very painfully. A trend I've noticed in fiction and fandom lately is that trauma (particularly during youth) is used to justify anything (*cough* Killmonger *cough*). A traumatic past doesn't justify giving others a traumatic present, and so many people don't seem to understand that. I'm sure BrandoSando would do it in a better fashion if he did decide to go down that route (and we've seen it with Dalinar), but if Moash is redeemed it had better be more substantial than 'you had a sad childhood and you did one good thing, everything is forgiven now'.

Purely in terms of the 'take my pain' thing, my guess would be Kaladin or Shallan. Much of Kaladin's drama is how much losing people hurts him, but he seems to have largely come to terms with it in ROW. Still, the fact that Oaths don't remove the personal traumas and hangups they represent means he may still feel the pain. Shallan's entire arc is based on suppressing painful memories, and once she swears them as truths she can't ignore them anymore. I can definitely see her taking a road that alleviates her guilt for her actions (and who knows what painful truths she swore to Testament that she may or may not remember). Both characters work for the 'someone Dalinar can't bring himself to kill' angle people are predicting. His loyal soldier and bodyguard who is almost a surrogate son and his daughter in law would certainly make him pause. Edit: apparently there was an Unmade influencing the Davar household, much as Nergaoul via the Thrill influenced Dalinar. Possibly more evidence for Shallan. To be fair, I feel much of the info we base our speculation on would be contingent on Rayse still being the Vessel, so maybe TOdium would choose someone else.

I had a thought while reading this thread, and it may tie together a few viewpoints. Dalinar accuses Taravangian of wanting to be the one to save Roshar. Taravangian went to the Nightwatcher to ask for the capacity to save humankind, which Cultivation granted. I don't recall if there's an exact wording for what he asked, but from what I can gather it was 'give me the capacity to save people'., as opposed to 'give us the capacity to survive'. It's a fairly innocuous distinction if you aren't a fantasy literature nerd with too much time on their hands, but it can suggest a desire to be a saviour, rather than be part of a group who was saved. It seems innocuous enough that Cultivation could take it as a desire to protect, rather than being the one to do the protecting (this is arguably also a major difference between Kaladin and Amaram. The former wants to protect people and simply pushes himself to do it all because of his desire to protect, while the latter wants to be the one to do it with less concern for those he's actually protecting). It ties into Dalinar's concerns about his motivations, and Taravangian may have been telling the truth about wanting to save people. Infinity War/Endgame spoilers, since we're using Thanos as an equivalent, as well as Mistborn spoilers:

I've always said that the reason we don't hate Dalinar this much is because we met Dalinar post-heel/face turn (and Dalinar's redemption is part of why he's my favourite character). That being said, I don't recall Dalinar's kills being this personal. He killed or gave the orders that killed bajillions, and many of them were on the battlefield and were trying to kill him too. He never murdered a former friend in order to to drive another friend to suicide, nor taunted the mother of a previous victim with lies about how he was a snivelling coward right at the end. Even Shallan as someone pointed out has killed, but all of them were in defence of herself or others (or having no idea that it would happen, in Testament's case). Moash also explicitly says he's not sorry for killing Teft, he's only sorry that he feels bad about doing so. That's why I dislike him so much, and why I kind of don't want him to be redeemed. I could get behind redemption if he'd stopped at Elhokar and Roshone, as he did have legitimate grievances against them, even if Elhokar wasn't as malicious as Moash thinks he was. But as it stands, nope. If he does get redeemed, I really hope that it's not just a 'diddums had a sad childhood and that made him kill everyone he could' that is so prevalent in fiction/fandom nowadays.

One of their virtues is supposed to be 'guiding', maybe their ability to persuade the spren is meant to reflect their ability (and the force of personality) to guide a society? Although I agree that the two we've seen have been rather heavy on brute force. One the other hand, spren like the Stormfather are so powerful they could probably do with a compassionate mind tempering their power. Dalinar spends part of the book trying to convince the Stormfather to have a kinder relationship with sentient beings than 'I will squish you with a rock quickly rather than slowly smashing you into everything in your way'.

Was Gavilar planning to do what Taravangian did and take up Odium? 'I have discovered the entrance to the realm of gods and legends, and once I join them, my kingdom will never end. I will never end.' Sounds pretty ominous in light of what happened at the end of the book. He's in contact with Heralds and presumably knows that they are Heralds. He's working to bring Odium's forces back to Roshar, and he has a sphere of Light that is theorised to be able to kill Odium. Perhaps he didn't know that Odium was a literal cosmic force of hate, but he may well have wanted to take up a source of practically infinite power.

I genuinely thought either the 'save yourself to save others later' or 'making a choice to protect some at the expense of others' options that are being floated for the 5th Ideal would be the 4th. As someone pointed out, 'I will teach people to protect themselves' encompasses both the protection and leading attributes.

I definitely think that if TOdium was messing with Hoid's memories, there's a decent chance he had a quick peekaroonie at the secrets of the cosmere while he was there. That would surely lead to something huge in the next book.

Renarin is not only a blank spot of cancelled-out futuresight, he's about as well placed as he could be. He's family (by blood or marriage) to the Queen of Alethkar, the Kholin Highprince and his wife, and the King of Urithiru and his wife (not to mention these people are respectively the first modern Elsecaller, possibly the first human to revive a deadeye spren, the leader of the modern Lightweavers, and both Stormfather and Sibling's Bondsmiths). Not to mention being an honorary member of the core of the modern Order of Windrunners and the reason for the second singer Radiant in history, and having brief contact with Odium's right hand human and the new vessel of Odium. His own future sight affects how he affects others, and that ripples out across Roshar. He's not just one wildcard, he's a wildcard that stacks the deck with other wildcards. As for why he's capable of this, I don't see why the corrupted spren explanation isn't enough to explain this. We'd need to see what powers other corrupted spren grant before we can tell how unique he is.

For Dresden Files readers, I'd be curious about what people thought of Peace Talks/Battle Ground. I wasn't a big fan of PT, but I enjoyed BG a lot more, even if there was one scene (if you've read it you probably know) that has made me question whether I want to read more of them. PM me, I guess.

First off, I'm cis male so I'm sorry if I come across as not treating this as sensitively as someone with first hand experience. I saw the binding chapter, but it definitely had a vibe of 'not wanting to accept puberty has come' rather than 'trans radiant'. Also, I feel that having a 'trans icon' still being referred to by other characters and the narration as 'she' (I assume given the binding if Lift were trans she would be FTM, or at very least identified as non-exclusively female enough to suppress physical signs of it) is a little problematic. People have talked about Brandon's somewhat anti-LGBT letter before, but from what I remember even that had vibes of 'I don't agree with what you do but you don't affect me by doing it so you do you'. I'd like to think that he's grown enough that he wouldn't intentionally misgender one of his major characters. On the trans Radiant angle, did anyone else catch Formless being referred to as 'he', or was that a typo (I seem to remember when Formless 'took over' that female pronouns were used)? I legitimately wondered if Shallan's secret might have been she was trans, and that she had built up some internalised transphobia which fueled her 'everyone will hate me' thoughts.

I'd say that Kelsier would have rules about killing kids. I don't recall the Ghostbloods ever hurting someone who wasn't an adult, even if they don't go out of their way to run orphanages or help kids in any way. As for Kelsier's hypocrisy about killing for pleasure, he might be like post-memory renewal Dalinar. 'I did bad things, and I want to stop doing them.' Secret History Spoilers (I don't see why I'd need it seeing we're using his name, but just in case) Bigger question for me is: Where did the other bird (presumably another Aviar) come from?

At first I thought TOdium had trapped Hoid in a time loop, possibly to poke around through his memories and learn about the wider Cosmere (and I still kind of think that). Did anyone else get that vibe?

I should point out that the 'not a proper rebuttal' part referred to the spren who have been frothing mad about it all just looking the other way when a perfect example of what they were frothing mad about is right in front of them. It's safe to say I'm not a fan of Shallan, but I can still agree that she was a kid who didn't know what she was doing and that she has diminished culpability (if any) from the perspective of a rational human being. Although I'm still confused as to why Cryptics would want to bond someone who has already killed one of them, regardless of the reasons why. Edit: I am a little frustrated at the fact Shallan keeps lying to herself and everyone about things in her life, but that's her entire arc, and it's on the list of things that I get frustrated about but completely understand how she could come to the conclusion that this is what she needs to do. Obviously she doesn't have the same moral culpability as other characters who have done horrible things due to her young age (e.g. Dalinar, Moash), but a simple 'hey Shallan, I know it's a difficult topic for you to deal with but it would have been nice to have a heads up that you could potentially undermine our entire mission' would have been nice. But again, her memory suppression is a core part of her arc, and I don't know how the Stormlight Archive would have unfolded without that aspect.

I keep thinking of this (fast percussion, droning rhythm)