Elias

All of this may be true, and I'm rereading RoW. I was going off what I remembered about the first reading, which I fully accept is likely faulty. Nergaoul was the only one that I really felt I had a solid grip on when I started writing that post. The others were just speculation to get the conversation started. That said, I do still think there must be something more to the fact there's nine Unmade and nine brands of Fused.

This is why George Washington won the American Revolution. He wasn't a brilliant strategist or tactician, winning battles by miraculous planning or zealous passion. His greatest skill was knowing when to cut your losses and withdraw, because past a certain point, it's more important to preserve your forces than continue fighting. And that's also been a big problem Kaladin struggles with: when to stop fighting and just let himself rest and heal. Another option could be "I will accept the role of leadership", as Kal has many times felt uncomfortable with the notoriety and people looking up to him, and an essential part of being an effective military leader is to accept that you will lose people, which is what the 4th Ideal was about.

Now that it's confirmed that there are only nine Surges usable by the Fused, as they don't believe Adhesion is a true Surge, I wonder if there's some significance to the Unmade? Re-Shephir was sealed away by a Lightweaver, right? What if there's a reason for that? I always found it strange how Shallan seemed to empathize so easily with Re-Shephir. I first became suspicious about Shardplate being manifested lesser spren after reading a question asked to Brandon about Kaladin often being followed by packs of windspren, and I started thinking what type of spren each order of Knights Radiant might manifest as Shardplate. That led me to think about the relationship between humans and singers, and spren, and I started wondering if the Unmade might correspond to an order of Radiants or Herald each, as well. Following this thread, it seems that the Unmade might be a subversion of the attributes associated with each order/Herald: Nergaoul might be the dark inversion of Taln's role as Herald of War, as Nergaoul inspires a bloodlust that robs war and combat of any higher or noble purpose. Ba-Ado-Mishram, as a commander of Odium's forces, might be a dark counter to Jezrien's role as Herald of Kings, the leader of humanity, or maybe to Ishar, as she manipulated Connection on a massive scale to bond with singers and provide Regals and Voidlight Sja-Anat's ability to corrupt spren may be a dark adaptation of the Truthwatchers' mission to spread truth through the populace and keep an eye on the world's leaders, but Sja-Anat's children serve as spies rather than whistleblowers. I'm of the opinion that, because the Fused see the Surge of Adhesion as a lie perpetrated by Honor, and it indeed it can't be suppressed by the Voidlight fabrial, one of the two orders that has that Surge will not have a corresponding Unmade. It just so happens that those two orders, the Bondsmiths and the Windrunners, were associated with leadership, the Bondsmiths with leadership of the Knights Radiant, the Windrunners with leadership of humanity at large. I wonder if there's any deeper significance to that, that maybe Odium didn't want an Unmade that was meant as a dark subversion of leaders. I'm not sure, and maybe I'm blowing this all out of proportion, but hey, there's always another secret.

I think you mean Dysian Aimian. Siah Aimians are the ones like Axies the Collector.

As an aspiring writer, I think I can say with some small amount of authority that it is a delicate balancing act between character development and plot development. It took me several years of constant pondering on my writing before I realized that those two things don't have to be the same for a good story, where a development in a character's personality drives a development in the plot, or a a significant plot event results in a character having a realization about himself or his relationships. Certainly, that's what you're aiming for, but it is monstrously difficult to pull off effectively. It took me a long time to realize the character development doesn't have to happen right in the middle of the conflict. It's alright to have a character pondering the conflict they just went through and come to a realization after the fact, or in the lead up to a conflict realize something about themselves. Certainly you want both, but not every story needs them to happen at the same time. From what I've seen of the Mad Max films, which is admittedly not much, there's very little character development in Max. Mostly he remains the same. The interplay comes from his remaining the same while the world changes around him, while the people he interacts with change around him. And yet, they're still good stories, evoking of sense of disconnect Max feels from the world he finds himself in. That is something I'm trying to make work in a current short story I'm writing, that sense of a consummate professional who feels isolated from a world that doesn't seem to want him anymore. And I spent months deliberating how to work in development for this character before realizing that I didn't need to, not for him. The situation he finds himself in is par for the course for him, but not for the others who are in it with him. And so I shifted to focusing on their character development, and all these ideas started popping into my head. Sure, I wouldn't write this character as a main viewpoint in a book like Mistborn or the Stormlight Archive (assuming I would even be able to write a series as masterful as the Stormlight Archive), but the reason I'm writing this short story is to get better at writing, not to write a bestseller. That's what first struck me about Brandon Sanderson's writing, though: he almost seamlessly blends character development and plot development, which requires a lot of skill and creativity. Take the scene where Kaladin meets Moash in Hearthstone: a powerful scene of character development in the middle of a tense conflict. I couldn't dream of writing that as well as it was written at my current skill level. In light of that, I give Brandon Sanderson a pass or twelve when his stories, especially his novellas, aren't as up to par as we would like them. And that's not even mentioning the sheer volume he writes seemingly nonstop. It's tempting to think of Brandon as Adonalsium, all-encompassing and divine with a grand scheme already laid out, but I have a feeling in reality he's a lot more like Hoid, with a grand plan in the works but still having to take care of lots of little things as they come.

This is exactly what I said in a different thread:

Silence Montane and her daughter, as well as Wan ShaiLu, do as well, and Wayne, Lessie mention it in passing once.

It could be that the four spiritual attributes are each tied to a Dawnshard. Change could be Investiture, as it's a common theme in other fantasy series that magic is a force of some primeval chaos and so far there isn't a manifestation of Investiture that doesn't change something, Fortune could be Survive, as it governs luck and seeing the future, as well as pointing out things that could be useful or beneficial, Unity would most certainly be Connection, because it's obvious And Identity could be Distinguish/Discern, as Identity governs how people are different from things and creatures around them. Another thing I would like to say is that maybe the Change Dawnshard is somehow involved with the creation of Soulcasters. It's said that the island of Akinah was the only place people could go to get Soulcasters in pre-Scouring times, and Soulcasters are devices that literally change one thing into another by manipulating the Surge of Transformation.

Yeah. It took me a while to read the entire Bands of Mourning, as well. It's to do with my ADHD. I get interested in something for a few weeks, and then my interest shifts to something else, and it takes a couple months for it to swing back to the first thing. So when I start reading Hero of Ages, I just want to go back and read the whole trilogy, and by the time I catch back up to the Hero of Ages, I'm interested in something else.

What do you mean by double-post? Hero of Ages.

I'd love that. I'm a huge fan of fandom personality quizzes. I took a fanmade one and turns out I'm a bronze misting. I still believe it would be most fun to be a steel compounder, as you get one of the more interesting Feruchemical powers with one of the most useful Allomantic powers.

I honestly don't know. I tend to naturally look out for my friends' wellbeing, so in that sense I fit with the Windrunners. I try to remember those who get left behind by society, so I could fit with the Edgedancers. I have trouble sometimes restraining my temper and enjoy taking things apart to see how they work, so I have traits of the Dustbringers (sorry, Releasers!) I prefer to think through my problems like an Elsecaller, but I also hold fast to my personal code like a Skybreaker. Ultimately, I think the Radiant orders aren't so much about doing what you already do, it's about dedicating yourself to a higher cause and committing to it. And I'm hesitant to pick one of the orders without complete knowledge of at least the basics of the others. We have no idea what the Stonewards or the Willshapers dedicate themselves to. We haven't seen Dustbringer or Truthwatcher oaths. So I'm not sure which would yet be a good fit for me. Edit: Now that I think about it, my commitment to wait until I have more information lines up most with the Elsecallers, doesn't it? That's probably where I fit best, as no matter what I'm doing, I try to make my choices based on evidence, and like Jasnah, I prefer to choose for myself what to believe in, based on my own observations rather than what anyone tells me.

A better question is what haven't I read. I own all the cosmere books, and have read them all at least twice. I never finished HoA because every time I try I just want to go back and read the whole Mistborn trilogy, and by the time I get to HoA I'm interested in a different book again.

I'm new here, and I haven't read all the replies in this thread, nor have I read the preview chapters, but it seems to me that a lot of people are making assumptions about what is empirically true, rather than what seems to be true. Some of the dozen or so replies I've read seem to be claiming that Gavilar is a bully, 100%. But without a narrative set from Gavilar's perspective, none of us save the author himself can possibly know for sure. I freely admit that I don't have enough information to make assumptions about the characters or content in this thread, but we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking everything we read is the empirical truth. There's a reason Brandon wrote the Stormlight Archive from a third-person limited perspective, and it's likely the same reason George RR Martin wrote the Song of Ice and Fire books from that perspective: to illustrate that no character in the books knows everything. I think it's important to remember that no matter how much information you think you have, no one can truly know what goes on in a person's thoughts besides the person themselves. It's a careful distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.

Now that's a question. I'd probably want Feruchemy, because, as Sazed said, "Allomancy's abilities were flashier, but Feruchemy offered a much more lasting benefit to society." In addition, Feruchemy offers the broadest selection of powers that would be useful in the modern world. Control of gravity (flight) is often the classic answer to "What superpower would you want?", but realistically, how useful would it be?

My favorite is probably Kaladin, as his battles with depression and musings on what it means to commit to protecting innocents really resonated with me, as I've had my own battles with depression, yet I still try to look out for the wellbeing of my family and friends. When I was reading the Way of Kings, my favorite book series had been David Farland's Runelords, because of how unique the magic felt and the cohesiveness of the society around it. Yet I read the first hundred pages of my local library's copy of the Way of Kings and immediately switched to the Stormlight Archive as my favorite book series. I immediately went out and bought the book at Barnes and Noble. Never before have I become enamred so quickly with a new book series, and this fascination was in large part due to how realistically Sanderson portrayed characters struggling with mental health issues in the midst of conflict. And while Oathbringer has supplanted Way of Kings as my favorite of the Stormlight Archive, due largely to the overall theme of a reawakening of ancient powers in preparation to survive a reemergence of ancient demons, Kaladin has always remained my favorite character.

Hello, I just signed up. I usually don't join forums, but the Cosmere novels are so expansive and incredible I made an exception to join this community. Mainly so I can speculate on mechanics and get bombarded with inevitable RAFOs.