Valigus

It seems reasonable to conclude given that they are known to be significant splinters of honors power. Whereas shardblades are not. I do not believe it’s ever directly stated but honorblades are proper splinters of honors power whereas shardblades are never referred to as such. a point regarding their sentience though is that it may not actually be indicative of lower levels of investiture given that the sentient spren of Roshar were seemingly intentionally shaped, furthermore they only gain sentience in the physical world with the bond, and honorblades connection to their wielders seeming to be much weaker than bonded spren, it could be they cannot manifest minds as easily.

So given that honorblades are significantly more invested than shard blades, do we think that this has a bearing on their ability to cut more invested entities? For example let’s say you can’t cut some entities with enough investiture (tbh I think this is highly unlikely given that we have seen them cut people invested by unmade and heralds.) would an honor blade do better given its much greater investiture?

Here’s another good question, if a shardblade cannot cut a dragon (frankly I find this unlikely at least in terms of its bare flesh. They can cut heralds for example and I suspect heralds are at least as invested if not more invested than (most) dragons. would a honorblade be able to? Do honorblades have higher cutting potential as a result of being much more invested entities?

Possible, or the cost of transporting it is prohibitive, but also consider that jezrien was the tattered remains of a herald, these are reforged heralds with their honor blades, and full power intact, I think you need a substantial gemstone for that. The big question about the new oath pact is why they would ever come back cause it kind of seems like that would let retribution just kill all the spren

My suspicion is that they can’t rly, the amount of anti-light needed is probably far too substantial. we’ve only seen any light interact with low levels spren, kill fused (which mostly seemed to happen because of the pressure) and collapse a perpendicularity with heralds being literally reconstituted from investiture I doubt antilight would slow them down much more than poison or just being stabbed rly good so the amount they would need (and getting it there) is probably prohibitive, nothing anywhere close to as strong as herald as been gone after with anti light, for comparison nobody ever seriously considered using anti light to kill the stormfather

Yeah it would’ve been pretty funny, but the problem was that it would have been fairly transparent, and taravangain can prob like force fen into a vision or something

So you’re saying because people have imagined the heralds to be these insanely strong godlike warriors they literally got super strength and a host of other things?

They also have moderately explicit super strength and speed which is the main one I noticed. Like taln seems to just blitz fused, and nale moves so fast in their fight that he literally makes what seems to be mini thunderclaps, and hits kaladin way harder than a normal human should be able to as a receipt on page 1031, Nale moves in a blur, on the next page he then super speeds through his defense to grab him and smashes him against the rocks so hard it breaks shardplate.

So now that we have seen the heralds fight for real we gotta ask a few questions. 1. what are there undisclosed powers, specifically the super speed and strength, how do they work, what are the upper limits, etc… 2. with these powers, how we rating fullborn vs herald now? And random side note, how op is kaladin gonna be when he shows back up

But that rly is what’s called for here, the whole cosmere is quite explicitly at stake, and dalinars decisions will damn Roshar to save the cosmere. He had consigned 100s of thousands of innocents to suffer and probably die, in order to win, and made a decision for which he may be reviled (or at least not loved if people found out about it). The irony of the ending is that he did exactly what tarvangian has been preaching, he took a horrible action for the sake of everyone that had to be done, while jasnah and tarvangian wavered.

My two cents on the moral themes the great irony of the ending is that dalinar in his moment of “weakness” did the utilitarian thing nobody else was strong enough to do, he damned Roshar to save the cosmere. jasnah and taravangian in the end revealed their commitment to their ideals to be hollow, the irony being that the man who rejected them made the right choice by them, and has done so, nearly every time. (I think this in part represents a common lack of understanding with the philosophy but I don’t begrudge him that, he’s a fantasy writer not a philosophy PhD) but also it’s just rly funny and I think it may be somewhat intentional

Part of the huge problem for Jasnah here is that she can’t argue things about epistemic position without losing. This is even specifically acknowledged by her in the debate, where she wants to say that she seeks the greatest good for the greatest number with what she has available. Which is often the requirement people are held to in regards to their actions in utilitarian moral philosophy. the problem here was if she admits that, she concedes, because taravodium is a god and has infinitely more information than her, so in part out of pride she cannot admit her own infallibility and in part she cannot concede this and say “I am wrong sometimes, but I do my best with the info I have” because he has more information. she was very unprepared, but also showed a lack of flexibility here, the only path to winning this debate as I see it would have been 1. Admit the epistemic position(makes her seem more reasonable(cause it is reasonable)) 2. Attack taravangians sincerity to undermine his epistemic advantage (which she did but not without the first position) 3. Literally just deny all the letters and orders were written by her (kind of Hail Mary tho) follow-up to this- the great irony of the ending is that dalinar in his moment of “weakness” did the utilitarian thing nobody else was strong enough to do, he damned Roshar to save the cosmere. jasnah and taravangian in the end revealed their commitment to their ideals to be hollow, the irony being that the man who rejected them made the right choice by them, and has done so, nearly every time.

I strongly agree with this but take it a step further, we have a number of very curious things that look like the kinds of things cultivation had done I think she is cultivating “perfect” vessels for all the shards who can control the intent(as we see with what she says to Todium) for example- 1. Syl is awoken by a pure tone, before coming to Kaladin, could it not be cultivation, why did nale who knew about tien not know about kaladin despite him being way more conspicuous. 2. Nale had nightblood which was given to cultivation and he then presumably gave it to szeth on cultivations orders which is odd 3. Jasnah references a psychological break she had has a child where she was declared insane and kept in the dark for a period of months which literally nobody seems to remember or ever references. this goes on and on and on

Yeah that’s all fair tbh, but im almost done and I get why people would want this but if there is a sequel I am almsot 100% sure they will get together. In a solid half of Joel’s interactions with melody he things about how she is “quite pretty” or is a wearing a dress that is “quite fetching” and the book actively puts them in situations where they look like a couple and neither of them seem to rail against the suggestion. speaking personally when i or others I’ve seen have been in situations like that they will usually tail against the implication if anyone brings it up, people generally find it very uncomfortable I feel like to be implied to be in a relationship or attracted to someone who they aren’t (attracted to or in a relationship with). So in my mind that goes a long way. I could see her not reciprocating but Joel is attracted to her.

Yeah though I’d say solid chance I’m wrong about re-shephir specifically being from ashyn. However the idea that Ashlyn’s disease magic system was based on aethers seems very plausible. (Though I will say I think solid chance it just became spore-eaters from tress)