coolsnow7

I’m not sold by this explanation because we do quite literally have her viewpoint on these events. If that was the problem, we would have heard her say so.

I believe this is correct, and I would not be surprised if this is where Brandon goes when he finally does feature a Singer viewpoint in the backhalf. The little we’ve heard from them has set the stage for their struggle to figure out their identity and goals for themselves. And indeed, that’s not a reasonable expectation to have of people who were essentially revived from an infant-like existence and were promptly thrusted into total war all of a year or two earlier.

Yeah I’m not sold. But like I said, not my problem. If it works for other people, salud.

The year is 2044. The Stormlight Archive has concluded. Book 6 features Cultivation viewpoints describing her struggles with her plans for Roshar backfiring. Book 7 includes dialogue between her and the Nightwatcher about how her futuresight failed her when she needed it most. Book 8 features Retribution splintering her and dismantling her power such that it can never be reclaimed. Book 9 depicts an extended discussion between Hoid, Frost, and several other Shards about how the outcome on Roshar was diametrically opposed to Cultivation’s desires and created a deep wound that Retribution easily exploited. Book 10 culminates in all of Roshar declaring that they will be the first Shard-free world, after having experienced the havoc wreaked by Cultivation’s arrogant attempts to steer them in her preferred direction - and that the people of Roshar uniting under the banner of Stagnation, dedicated to opposing the Intent of Cultivation Cosmere-wide. Nevertheless months later, 17thshard.com features posts like “All According to Plan: how Cultivation was planning for her own demise from day one”, wherein via a combination of conspiracy theorizing, textual numerology, and unhealthy doses of Adderall, its author concludes that Kaladin was actually the 4-way love child of Cultivation, Tanavast, Hoid, and Jerrick pre-Shattering, secreted away in a Spiritual Realm stasis bubble, endowed with the cognitive shadow of Koravelium-Avast upon her death, and will reemerge in Mistborn Era 4 to (somehow) reassemble the pieces of Cultivation and rule over the entire Cosmere for eternity.

Who was claiming otherwise?

I mean this is a stretch to say the least. (I do think what you mean is “they are treated as objects rather than subjects”.) Brandon deciding not to feature viewpoints from the Singers doesn’t mean anything, and doesn’t bear on the “message” of the books. I think there’s an interesting question here of “hey Brandon don’t you think there’s at least some interesting ground to cover by telling some stories from the perspective of a Singer?” But I’m perfectly satisfied to trust him saying (via his decisions) “no there isn’t”.

And what I am noting is that no one in real life planet Earth says “well if you happen to run into a gorilla with an IQ of 75 we won’t judge you if you claim to marry them”. So we do draw lines based on species differentiation. Where and how we draw those lines is a legitimate question. That doesn’t mean they’re drawn maximally - by the same token, the idea of “miscegenation” is, let us say, outdated. Yes this is how intuition pumps work. You can always bite the bullet and say “I’d have no aversion”. Dennett coined the phrase intuition pump in the first place, and it came about from him doing this a lot in debates about consciousness: every time someone would show up and say “well what about this thought experiment” he would go “yes I think that would be as conscious as a human”. In a lot of ways philosophy is just an exercise in trying to make our intuitions cohere. But the option of just ditching most intuitions is always available. And it’s a valid one: “men shouldn’t be romantically involved with other men” was a very widely held intuition for a long time, as was “adult men should pursue preteen boys for sex”.

I think it’s a reasonable enough question. This is a large part of how philosophy as a discipline functions: via “intuition pumps”. And the underlying philosophical question isn’t wrong either: bestiality is pretty much universally proscribed across 21st century humans with no exceptions for “an extra smart gorilla or whale”, so wondering whether a Singer falls within the line or outside it is a legitimate question.

Without dismissing the question, the answer depends entirely - not almost entirely, fully 100% entirely - on the details of the premises, which you (and Brandon for the most part) have left open. Say, in real life, some wormhole opened up to a different galaxy’s Earth 2 where there was another species that looked, acted, functioned etc. identically to humans, complete with identical genetic makeups, except for one small detail (let’s say, they have a second appendix). Clearly they’re a different species. And yet I don’t think, if our civilizations started blending, anyone would be uncomfortable with humans getting together with them. By contrast, say we found some pre-Neanderthal evolutionary ancestors frozen in ice somewhere such that we could thaw them out and bring them back to life. They’d be quite substantially different - much lower IQ, significantly different biology and physical appearance, certainly no cultural background etc. On some level you have a stronger argument that they’re the same species as us than the Earth 2 people. And yet, someone trying to bang this 2 million+ old genetic ancestor would be correctly viewed as some combination of abusive, bestial, and masturbatory. Point being, how I - or really, anyone - will react is largely an open question at this point, because Brandon has yet to fill in most of these details. To actually answer the question: Interestingly, as far as humans<>Singers goes, my own intuition is resolved based on the fact that (according to WoB regarding the Horneaters) apparently humans and Singers can reproduce. I imagine this could sound controversial because it might imply that the boundary between acceptable love/sex/relationship and unacceptable is whether the participants can reproduce together, which is obviously false (because then every pair of grandparents over 55 would have to get divorced.) But to me it feels like a reasonable line to draw with respect to different species, whether that’s logically coherent or not. I think there are Cosmere questions regarding how two different species evolving in entirely different contexts wind up converging to sufficiently similar genetic makeup such that they can reproduce, and those questions probably get answered by a combination of “good moves in design space” and “lol Adonaldium bro”. That said, I also found the human<>Direform romance in WaT deeply implausible. How is anyone human going to be physically attracted to a Direform? Did this guy do some epic Soothing+Rioting on himself so that he could convince himself to find a Direform beautiful? Whatever, not my problem.

I’m not about to argue with you about Fukuyama - your best bet is to read the actual book and find out his arguments for yourself. I’m here to point out that this is a respectable view that’s, I’d say, pretty widely held - and therefore serves as a reasonable basis for the Cosmere. And, I’d bet that if you ask Brandon, he holds these views as well.

Actually this is my favorite part of the book: that we’re left with a real sad ending, with real problems, and an intimidating adversary heading into the future. It just removes all the stakes as a reader if everything gets resolved at the end of every arc - it’s like authors not killing off any characters. “Oh gee our hero really is in trouble, I wonder if he’ll make it out of this one - hah jkjk, he’s done so the past 100 times too.” What’s even the point of reading such a book? This is 100% correct. I genuinely don’t know how this got past beta readers unless it was extremely deliberate in a way that will pay off down the line. IMO the adage “if you’re satisfying no one, you’re doing something right” is wrong - in politics as well as in art. If you make something beautiful everyone will be satisfied (or at least, your fanbase will be). If your creation is lacking, people will often struggle to put their finger on why they’re unsatisfied (kind of like how my 6 year old will be extremely hungry, but will instead blame every trivial cause under the sun for his discomfort rather than just eat) but the reality is the good parts of your creation failed to outshine the weaknesses (which every work of art has) so people point to the weaknesses.

In case it’s not obvious, I agree with this spot-on thread about how cheesy, forced, and irritating Kaladin’s transformation into “therapist to the Heralds” was. Which made me think: how will we look back on this in future books? Brandon really seems committed to this angle and to have been committed to it since RoW; so perhaps he has more in mind for it than just being the theme of WaT. We also see that: 1) the core problem of the Cosmere with respect to Odium is that the attribute of divine hatred lacks context, and that holders of the power are overwhelmed by the agony experienced by sentient life in the Cosmere. (Does this not sound like Ishar on steroids?) 2) the powers can develop some amount of self awareness - ie, they can learn and think. A solution to the core problem could be teaching the power of Odium how to contextualize the pain it feels and its (correct) hatred for the sources of that pain. And so Kaladin, after developing over a decade* as therapist to the Heralds, can grab ahold of a Dawnshard or something and endow the power of Odium with some context and tools for working through rage. ________ Do I think this is a great theory? Eh. Do I like it - ie would I enjoy it if this is the direction the books take? Hell no. But given that this plotline was so forced, at such great length, in a crucial book, I have to think that it plays some Cosmere-level role of significance down the line. And in case something like this actually happens, I want to register my take from now. * yes I know with the time dilation it likely won’t be a decade before the Heralds return. Whatever, so Kaladin will become a literal God-tier therapist in 7 months.

There’s a LOT of “comic relief” in this book. This is a trend I’ve noticed with The Lost Metal too, which I call Avengersification: every character, whether they’re smart or dumb, whether they’re uptight or whimsical, whether they’re cynical or naive, serves as a platform for witty zingers in the same voice. To the point where it feels like Wit has about as many zingers as Szeth in this book.

From Wikipedia:

Clearly you’re not a Fukuyamist (see The End of History and the Last Man) but clearly Brandon is!

I don’t know why you say this? The Blackthorn circa the Rift was hardly Honor aligned. His Cultivation “pruning” had not taken place and he was as saturated with the Thrill as he’d ever be. If anything, he was strictly Odium aligned.

As a complete non-practitioner, I completely agree with all of this. I don’t know what Brandon was going for here, or what he’s trying to build towards in future books. But I basically had to pretend I wasn’t reading such cheesy nonsense so I could focus on the good stuff in this book.

The year is 2054. Brandon has completed the Cosmere, with the final prologue to the Stormlight Archive being Gavilar’s death from the Stormfather’s perspective. He’s written a 3,000 page autobiography of the Stormfather with 7 chapters devoted to the events leading up to the night in question as well as a more detailed version of their dialogue. Later in the series we find out that Gavilar had these conversations in a room lined with aluminum so that no one could have interfered with their bond even if they knew about it. And in the final Cosmere installment, a 20,000 entry Encyclopedia of the Cosmere, Brandon includes a special 40 page essay entitled “There is no Stormfaker, You Storming Airsick Jabronis. Stop Doing Drugs!” And despite all those efforts, the first response to the essay on www.17thshard.com is a post entitled “Stormfaker: was Brandon hiding one last secr-“ which was apparently cut off as the poster was writing mid-overdose on a mixture of horse tranquilizers and copium.

Please. All of you. Just stop. Brandon has already said, all but explicitly, “Nohadon is just a dude”. Y’all doing some serious drugs going from [literally nothing] in the books themselves to “Nohadon is actually the God Beyond incarnate, also the second coming of Adonalsium, also the Grand Apparatus, and also Kaladin’s and Shallan’s lovechild from a different timeline, brought over from the Spiritual Realm”. The Nohadon theories need to be shut down, they’re getting way out of control.

Retribution and Mercy are about as opposite intents as is possible. Not happening. Autonomy and Odium seemed to have been working together a bit; at the very least, operating under a sort of “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” arrangement. I think they will continue to do so. Frankly it’s hard to see anyone properly allying with Retribution since he’s explicit about his goal of eliminating everyone else. The sense I got from Endowment’s letters is that she was really all in on “he’s not a problem”. Now that he is a problem I expect her to join the Good Guys.

Well no, she thought that her arguments were so ironclad that not even Odium could find a hole. Even God can’t prove that 2+2=5! “Ad hominems are a fallacy” is not true in this context! The person making the argument matters a lot! The whole point Taravangian is making - is always making literally every single time we hear from him - is that abstract debate and theory is a hollow representation of real rulers making real decisions, and consequently is insufficient for real world leaders. I mean come on, this guy spent the past 4 books popping up behind every leader on the planet saying “hey, can you feel it? The weight of responsibility? The moral culpability? No one could possibly know what it’s like if they haven’t experienced it” - this is the guy you’re (not literally you, I mean the person complaining about ad hominem attacks) going to say is being a naughty boy for personalizing the debate? Honestly I can’t decide if people aren’t reading the books, or they took one rhetoric class in college and all they took away was “ad hominem is a fallacy! A fallacy! Like, the argument is just wrong. Hey professor you hear what I said? I said it’s a fallacy! They’re very naughty.” Yeah and it would just be silly for Fen to worry that perhaps, whatever the merits of Honor’s plan, his goals don’t align with her goals- Oh wait.

No! Jezrien’s link is simply not there!

So this is incredibly subtle, but my fringe view is that there were enough hints for Taravangian to know what he was doing. For example when Taravangian is explaining to Dalinar why he believes they can’t win, there’s this intriguing line:

Ah you beat me to it. I don’t know why this crowd is obsessed with coming up with new whacked out placement for Nohadon even though Brandon tells us, all but explicitly, that he’s just a regular dude in the WoB.

I agree with you. I thought it was one of the more brilliantly executed portions of the book, especially just the basic plot twist of their being no battle in the first place. And the contradiction in Jasnah’s worldview was apparent for a long time. We all should have picked up on it earlier. I (briefly) started a PhD in philosophy so I usually find explicitly philosophical content pretty cringe. But Brandon did this beautifully. You are 100% correct to dismiss this argument. It’s laughable. The number of people who have claimed to be hardcore utilitarians only to wind up prioritizing their own friends and family is very, very long - and includes extremely brilliant people. Even people brilliant enough not to fall for pyramid schemes and the like. (To give a perhaps controversial example: I tend to think Sam Bankman-Fried really did believe his rhetoric about Effective Altruism, and found a way to rationalize gifting his parents millions of dollars in property.) The point of the debate wasn’t to get Jasnah to encounter the contradiction for the first time - all of the brilliant people who have fallen for this trap have thought about the topic in the abstract. The point was for her to confront the contradiction and offer a rebuttal strong enough to convince Fen! That is why Jansah was forced to acknowledge the contradiction - to herself, or in abstract philosophical debate, she could rationalize. To a fellow monarch who bears the responsibility for a nation of people, the rationalizations are no longer sufficient. In fact, I’d go further and note that Brandon laid the groundwork for this! We constantly heard from Taravangian about how rare it was for him to encounter someone who could relate to the visceral experience of the weight of responsibility. That’s what Odium used against Jasnah: the fact that she was only ever having these debates with fellow philosophers, never with another ruler.