therunner

More recent WoB is rather clear that metal that is body of living spren cannot be burned. So Allomancer couldn't burn Shardblade at all

I wouldn't say its done poorly, just contradictory. Their culture did have more violent periods in the past (the Shin Invasions), and on Roshar of all planets nation full of pacifist simply couldn't survive circa ~8 millenia. So by necessity their culture has to make some allowance for violence. Currently that takes the shape of pushing that 'crime' on permanent underclass Well, elites are formed from those who have some type of power, be it economical, martial, or social. Adding magic into the mix just means that possibly those with magical power will rise to be the elites in their society. And in pre-industrial society, access to magic generally puts you quite far over others, meaning you will have inherent advantage. Over time that will compound, especially if in the magic there is element heredity (like in Metallic Arts), proximity (like in Surgebinding), or plain inheritance (like in Awakening). Even Elantrians formed a permanent elite class near Elantris, and that is despite them lacking any heradity (though the invitation mechanism possibly nulls that). Perhaps consider that the Tower is the Sibling's physical form. And, as Navani eventually realizes, it is also a fabrial. So the Sibling is a pre-Recreance fabrial, a spren who volunteered to become a tool. Just a really cool, complicated, powerful tool. What does that have to do with the fact that Cultivation doesn't seem to be opposed to modern design of fabrials?

Horneaters also consider Hoid a god, and he is okay with fabrials, And so are most other spren. So at best, one god (out of many) has issues with fabrials. And Horneaters we do see don't have issues with fabrials themselves. Tanavast had issues due to power it could grant If I recall correctly. Cultivation had space to raise this issue (she did visit the Tower), or employ her agents to stop it, and never did. All of these are certainly more 'godly' than Sibling is, and never raise the issue. The above doesn't mean Sibling isn't possibly right ( I do think they have some points, but goes a bit too far ), but they shouldn't be listened to because they are a 'god', because basing their authority on that immediately refutes the stances. I guess we are relatively close in these opinions then. I didn't up until Oathbringer, but there we saw Shadesmar where spren play the same ecological role as animal do in PR, and other Radiant spren use them for labor in exactly the same fashion humans/Singers use animals in PR. Since then I considered them to be equivalent to animals, just from a different tree of life. I do not mind, in fact I welcome it, as I am not that well versed in ethics and morality. I do agree that Shin culture is quite contradictory, though it started with good intentions (likely their pacifism and taboos forming from those who refused to participate in First Desolation). But I would also say that Szeth circumstances are somewhat unique, due to his neurodivergence. From his flashbacks, he was unusually rigid even by Shin standards, and most other Shin would likely say 'Crem the Oathstone' and simply ran away, or at the latest would refuse to follow orders to murder innocents. So not all cam be blamed on Shin society in general.

He was consistent in the following of the Oathstone yes. But it didn't have greater moral weight, Szeth was clear that following Oathstones does not absolve him of his crimes, in fact that was the punishment. I would say that his morality overall was not consistent, as he was murdering people who were innocent, an act that was morally wrong. If your morality demands you: Do some act (murder innocents because of Oathstone) That act itself is deemed immoral (murdering innocents is bad) Yet not doing that act is also immoral (disobeying Oathstone is bad) then I would say your morality is not consistent. Arguably this is the first case of SA criticizing what it later did with Skybreakers, obedience to a code that can be fallible, with no regards for if the rules actually make sense. I do. It's just that I don't see how it has any bearing on moral consistency of the person in question. EDIT: @Aliroz-The-Confused Sibling is not a god, nor are they considered as such by most Rosharans, certainly not by any Vorins. And notably, none of what Rosharans would consider gods (Honor, Cultivation, Odium) have issues with fabrials. I said nothing of the sort. I just said that lesser spren are funcionally (and ecologically) equivalent to animals, and are treated as such by everyone there. Sibling is basically animal rights activist. IF you don't have issues with using animals for labor or food, I don't think it is reasonable to criticize use of spren either.

I think it means that pushing yourself until you break means you won't help anyone. It doesn't you have free pass to give up on your morals, it means that to be able to apply those morals long term, you have to remain functional, both in body and in spirit. Funny, I see it exactly opposite. Mistborn has morality on easy mode, their foes are fully irredeemable monsters (nobles, TLR) or forces of utter destruction (Ruin) and they don't have to consider them at all. Anything the protagonists do is justified, because their opponents are so much worse. Era 2 is basically the same, enemies being people who make breeding farms. Closest to moral complexity is Shadows of Self I would say, where Paalm is fundamentally a victim, and a perpetrator. Stormlight doesn't have that luxury. The enemies are humanized (Singer-nerized? ) as early as book 2, and it goes much further from there. Neither side is fully in the right, both are full of both victim and perpetrators. Individual characters can be simply antagonistic (Rayse, Taravangian), but the sides are not. I think its less Stormlight Archive moral priorities, and more simply going into more complicated things than : overthrow evil immortal Tyrant / stop God of Desctruction from destroying the planet. I will again say that fabrials are fundamentally no different from using animal labor, and that is something even other thinking spren (with the sole exception of Sibling) agree with (themselves using lesser spren for labor in Shadesmar). Navani is no more a monster than the person who started domestication of wild animals, or us for leveraging those animals for our comforts. Szeth was anything but morally consistent. He literally murders people knowing it is wrong, just because someone told him to. How is that morally consistent? Sarene and Raoden sure, though they each have page count roughly equivalent to 1/4 of one Stormlight book. On that scale, SA chars are usually morally consistent too I would say.

I agree with basically all of this except the last two sentences. I think Stormlight is more about "The ideal is impossible, but try anyway.", with the caveat that it should not come at the cost of your own health (physical and/or mental). Dalinar and his 3rd Oath (Rising each time you fail), 1st Oath in general (Journey before Destination = it being the process that matters). Kaladin just keeps trying to help people around him, even if he thinks it is impossible to save them (that was literally his mentality in TWoK, that Bridge 4 will die anyway so why should he try? And Syl convinces him it is worth trying it). That is why I don't see Navani as a monster, in the first days of being bonded to Sibling, she immediately pivoted Fabrial research to try and make it less objectionable to Sibling, and to ideally have spren enjoy the process. Something which seems to have at least partial success. That is her trying to do better. So long as they earnestly try to improve, that is good. Taravangian doesn't want to improve or change, he thinks he has all the answers, and it is just others who have to change, not him. Jasnah suffers from similar flaw, if not to the same extent (at least yet, who knows what her arc will bring). The points I mentioned are culminations of arcs at least within individual books. That is usually where you look for what the end message is. People being morally inconsistent is I don't think any surprise, you won't find any person in all Cosmere books who is morally consistent.

Unfair framing is like half of this thread, if not its fundamental basis. I mean that one situation (Vengeance Pact) is clearly not the basis of moral reasoning of Stormlight, series where: Protagonist seeks peace with killers of bis brother (Dalinar with Listeners and with Szeth) In the process Dalinar is also trying to end the War of Reckoning, and the failure of peace talks is considered tragic by them. Which is where narrative clearly frames War of Reckoning in its current version as morally wrong (as if it was not clear beforehand). Another protagonist protects another who is arguably responsible for death of his brother (Kaladin, once with Elhokar, once with Roshone) Men decide to try and save others, who (as far as he knows) victimized him and others like him (Kaladin and Bridge Four deciding to try and save Dalinar and his army at the Tower) The main antagonist espouses ends before means and the one among protagonists who does the same end the arc at her lowest (Taravangian and Jasnah) If after reading all that you come away thinking the moral reasoning of the series is "Ends justify the means" or "wronging people back is okay", there is likely something wrong with your reading comprehension.

I am happy to be proven wrong on any of the above statements. But what I said above is in fact taken quite seriously by historians Death rate of 30% below age 15 was the norm. (https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality ) (actually even worse than what I said Semi-constant wars being the norm Here it was difficult to find a good source, but e.g. it seems that at least since ~1800s the conflict first grew a bit and then lessened again (https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace?insight=relationships-between-countries-have-become-more-peaceful#key-insights ) So it seems that during trasnition to modernity the frequency did increase for some period of time. Though it is open question if that was causation, or just correlation. Slavery being the norm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery ) Pogroms being semi-constant danger to Jewish communities ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom ) There is a difference between just being unreasonable, and outright lying about facts of history (or written words in book). Yes, and most Listeners were killed during summoning of Everstorm, after having their personality taken over by Stormspren. Roughly 35 thousand of them died there, and most were killed by the clashing of Everstorm and Highstorm, as the forces of Alethkar lost the battle and had to retreat to survive. That was the key event, summoning of what turned out to be a seed for Night of Sorrows. Prior to it, both Eshonai and Dalinar were willing to start peace talks. Not exactly and act t of monsters you are trying to portray humans of Roshar as. Also, why are you not angry at those spren for brainwashing the Listeners? Because that is what they explicitly did, based on PoV chapters of Eshonai? Not to mention that the whole conflict was intentionally provoked by Ulim, agent of Odium. (the assassination of Gavilar being his idea, as is the summoning of storm spren and of Everstorm). It terrifies you that assassinating leader of foreign nation, during singing of agreement, has consequences?

Indeed. Which is why I have high hopes for Sanderson, since he will be denoting multiple books to such advancement. You might notice that vast majority of what I say does have qualifiers : "often", "most", "I think", "IMO". Hell, the one thing you just quoted starts with "I hesitate", to signify I am not sure in it. So no, I don't present things as incontrovertible truths. Death rate of 30% below age 15 was the norm. Healthcare was abysmal Serious illness regularly ravaging countries. Broken bones being quite serious problem (especially for peasantry) Semi-constants wars between states was the norm. Slavery was the norm Religious pogroms were the norm. None of these are fault of transitional periods, they are just what life was like in pre-modern times. Some were eliminated, others were lessened. What was uniquely awful about it? Wars? Been there done that. Genocides? Ditto. Proportionally, Genghis Khan killed more people than WW2 did. And quite possibly, in absolute numbers as well. Some of the horrors were magnified by technology (WW1 being IMO the best example), but at the same time the frequency of those horrors somewhat lessened (fewer and shorter wars). And some horrors were eradicated in parts of the world (slavery being outlawed in most countries, women's rights in the west, modern medical practices, etc.) The progress narrative is not artificial construct, when massive positive progress was made. You yourself literally just said that you wouldn't want to live in pre-modern period The only thing Kholins (Dalinar specifically) did that was uniquely awful was burning of Rathalas. Invasion of Shattered Plains is completely normal occurrence, it is a punitive war for extremely valid cause. Listeners assassinated a head of foreign state, refused to do any diplomacy (other than leave a few people there to admit to it), and so they got invaded. If some nation today just assassinated head of another state, you can bet there would be retribution for it. In history, such retribution would often be simply war until the offending nation yielded or was wiped out. And as established previously, wiping out other nations was not particularly unique in history. Or maybe, your opinion on what constitutes a good fantasy is not the only valid viewpoint? And Sanderson understands his work perfectly well, you just don't like what he does with it. E.g. I don't like fantasy or science fiction because they are escapes from modernity, I like them because they are new and different and semi-easily digestible. And preventing transition to modernity is not appealing to me at all. IMO, LOTR is less about preventing transition to modernity, and more about inevitability of such transition and mourning for what once was. ( Also, how the hell is science fiction not stained by modernity??? ) Going by dictionary, it is just being awed by something So understanding seems to be orthogonal to it. Which yeah, it seems that for you, understanding lessens wonder, for me it magnifies it. Both are valid.

The reason I'd hesitate to call the transition to modernity 'traumatic and violent' is because historical events as a whole are often traumatic and violent. Is transition to modernity more traumatic and violent than Crusades? Fall of Ottoman or Roman empires? Reconquista? Any number of plagues? So since it (IMO) doesn't fall outside of the 'trauma scope' of what happens when historical events are ongoing, I wouldn't call it traumatic and violent, at least not more so than any dozens of things that were happening in pre-modern times anyway. In fact, I would say it is much less traumatic and violent than any number of large historical events. And if those numerous traumatic things were happening in pre-modern times, than transition to modernity is not particular noteworthy IMO. If you would call most changes in history traumatic and violent, then well, it is at that point just description of history, not a property of transition to modernity. While WoT hint at these things ( and I loved those parts ), it never really explore them in particular depth, which is where I think Sanderson intends to differentiate himself.

I will grant you that they likely did at some point in history, as history is not black and white. But I won't grant that religions have acted systematically as guards against atrocities. I don't have problem acknowledging wrongs done by secular regime, my grandparents and parents grew up under communism, my great-grandparents were killed by Nazis in concentration camps. Were there places where pre-modern world was better? Sure maybe the smaller connectivity, slower pace most of the time, smaller disparity of power between classes. But I would never want to be born in the pre-modern world than in the modern one. I would be dead in pre-modern world few days after birth, and ~30% of people didn't live past age 15. Fundamentally, religion (IMO) is neither force for good or for bad, it's just a force. It depends what people do with it. I was never black and white about it, I was just pushing back on the assertion that religions acted as a systemic check on secular power, when that simply wasn't the case. I am very well aware of what secular regimes can do yes (see above about my famiily history). That is why I never claimed they are somehow perfect, only that historically it was religions that primarily drove atrocities. But I would caution against thinking that in those same situations, theocracies would be somehow better. Just look at Iran. Modern regimes have more power available, so what they can do is necessarily 'greater' in scale, than what people did in past. But that doesn't mean that past people wouldn't use those tools in the same (or simimlar) way, had they had them. For more extreme example, would Nazis focus so much on Jews, if it were not for ~2 millennia of religious persecution? Ultimately, we are still relatively new to the 'secular' thing as a world, as well as to equal democracies (women started to get voting rights mere century ago). So separating which woes are fully fault of secular structures, which are growing pains, and which are holdovers from more religious times, is impossible to say. Yes, most things move 'slower' in the past, for better and worse. But this is not a point at all, point is that unless you can back authority by power, you cease to have authority. What motivates you to hold on to power is separate question. Note that I consider organized religions to be a form of power in and of itself, as it allows you to move and coordinate larger masses of people (see e.g. crusades). I do agree with the this. I would disagree here. I don't think Kholins ever had anything other than power backing their authority. Alethkar as united political entity is ~30 years old by the time of SA1, they are extremely new regime. And it was created by conquest, nothing else. They slightly undermined the assertion that lighteyes are better than darkeyes, but still have power inside Alethkar. Jasnah's failure to negotiate with Fen is more her own personal failing than failing of Kholins as a whole. She never had anything that could compel Fen, she could always only ask. And since Jasnah disregards anything she deems 'irrational', she had nothing to say against Taravangian. The way they got power is very unsettling, though basically in line with how most monarchies got power. They had bigger stick. Even today that is the sad truth of the world. Wars that have been happening constantly throughout pre-modern times as well? Speaking specifically for Europe the 80 years since WW2 have been the most peaceful time ever for this part of the world. It wasn't perfect of course. And why do you exclude Europe from the desolation of continents? It is one of the more desolate ones by some metrics (e.g. most original forests being cut down for example, though we are slowly starting to restore the wilds). You mean mortality which is lowest in history in vast majority of the world? Pre-modern mortality was such that 30% of children never lived past 15. Romans had lead poisoning, and likely so did many other civilizations in history. People smoked in history as well. Microplastics, pollution are now new problems, yes. Travel always had risks associated with it (weather, bandits, accidents), today those are immensely lesser than they were. Again, I was never black-and-white about it, I was pushing back on your assertion that pre-modernity was somehow universally better. If you didn't mean it like that, than I misunderstood your point, and I apologize. I do agree that as problems are solved, some new ones are created, in exactly the way you say. While I agree that the transition to modernity can be difficult, I would hesitate to call it traumatic and violent. The loss of wonder is there, which we can see even in e.g. art history, by romantic movements. But personally, I see more wonder in today's world, than in premodern one. There I would be awed by lighting, or by a majestic storm, which I would not understand. Today I am awed by those things, but I also posses understanding, which (again for me) magnifies the awe. And we know much more about universe, so there are even more things to wonder at. Pre-modern man could never wonder at photos of other planets, sound of black holes merging, etc. So I would argue today we see (and can be awed by) more of what the Creater made, and our better understanding of the creation can bring us closer. If one believes in some form of Creator of course. Well, Sanderson in many comments about Cosmere was pretty clear that his major goal is exactly this transition. That he dislikes how fantasy is always stuck in medieval stasis of sort, and that he wants to have the world progress. We see it in Stormlight, and we see it in Mistborn as well, both of these are doing the same thing. It's just that in Stormlight we get closer more intimate look on how that progress happens, whereas in Mistborn we jump over it.

Interesting, I have never heard of that. Down the rabbit hole I go! Thank you.

True. Though emperor being also the highest religious office inherently means that high priest can't really tell emperor to go pound sand, that is just emperor changing his mind. If the religious order was the highest power, they usually also were the highest secular power as well, e.g. Papal states. But yes, the actual power dynamics are more complicated than these blanket statements.

I mean, if you count Yeden (who barely appears on screen) going rogue as example of difficulty of negotiations, then Radiants struggle far more. Dalinar never convinces either Elhokar or most of the Highprinces in first two books Kaladin takes months to convince people in mortal danger to...try and do something about it Oathbringer is an entire book about Radiants negotiating to get support So just on raw page count (and time spent on it in-world) there is more negotion going on than in Era 1 as whole Coalition then slowly fragments over the course of RoW and WAT, an example of failure to convince others Herdaz joins Coalition solely because they lost on their own, and Coalition promises them support in re-taking their homeland (so not so much convinced as the only option) Numerous lands of Azir leave, Shinovar is never convinced, Ishar is not convinced to support Coalition etc. I would say Jasnah is constantly portrayed as 'meaning well, but her choice of methods bites her backside', similar to Elend in book 1 and 2, except morally 'opposite'. TWoK - Jasnah is the narrative antagonist for most of the book, and portrayed as a overlooking the more human aspects of people around her O - Jasnah is the voice of extreme action, and opposed by the moral core of the cast Kaladin and Syl RoW - Jasnah removes her political opposition (the duel), but in such a way that it horrifies even Dalinar (and all others present) WAT - we all know So I would say that Jasnah is semi-constantly criticized by the books, for the methods she uses to get her goals. This can be contrasted with Elend: Where Elend was naive and overly trusting (leading to him being deposed), Jasnah is cynical and trust no one (leading to her being abandoned by her ally). Elend had to learn to be harsher as ruler (executing his former friend, and then ruling as absolute monarch backed by the power of Koloss armies), Jasnah has to learn the opposite how to be less harsh (IMO at least). Basically, we saw full arc of Elend, going from naive ideologue to much harsher but effective ruler. With Jasnah, we are at best in the middle of the arc, likely not even that (considering the relative page-time). I mean, it is how governments functioned historically as well. Ruling by 'grace of <insert relevant deity>' is nice and all, but unless you have physical means of holding on to power, you won't. Just look at numerous civilizations that no longer exist, because they got conquered by their neighbors. Anarchist though is fundamentally utopian, if those ideas worked in praxis, governments would never arise in the first place. The world was as anarchist want it to be, back in pre-historic times, since laws and governments are invented. Our world is the natural conclusion of anarchist thoughts, they are fundamentally self-refuting. Most civilizations throughout history were literally theocracies, so religious power didn't exist as a check on political power it existed to support political power. So in history religious hierarchies were the centralized power structures that possessed extreme military capacity, and suppressed any resistance with extreme prejudice and atrocity. For atrocities, feel free to reference any number of pogroms and genocides done to members of non-dominant religions. So claiming that religions were a guard against atrocity is a bit laughable, when often they were the drivers of atrocities. I do agree that authority is not just power. But authority without power is...pointless. And by power I mean any means of convincing or coercing others to do as the entity with authority wishes. It can be brute force, it can be economic coercion, it can be economic incentive, power of personal charisma, brainwashing, etc. But ultimately, unless you can convince other people to do as you wish, your authority is meaningless. See Elhokar, on paper the highest authority, in praxis..yeah. EDIT: Such world basically never existed, often king was the personification of gods on earth, and so outranked everyone. Did you completely miss all the Adolin sections in WAT? Because they literally say that same thing, and it is a Kholin who says that. That doing something simply ' because I made a promise ' is literally said and done by Adolin. Alternative being that the divinity what remains would be killed. And that divinity chose to do this, instead of the alternative. Roshar (and history) was never a place where Lift could remain an innocent child, such is a reality of the fact that all grow up. And the hints we have of her past all point in the direction that LIft lost her innocence even before meeting Cultivation, and this was her attempt to get it back/hold on to it, despite all that happened to her. But you can't go back into the past. Because more convenience and safety is bad? How are the days of warrior-kings and prophecies better? Is it the wars for glory of king/god? Or the high infant mortality?

I think a more natural unit to use would be Kelvin, not Fahrenheit, as that is the absolute temperature of body in physical sense. Fahrenheit and Celsius both have 0 set relatively arbitrarily. 98 F ~ 309 K , 1000F ~ 810 K , which makes it 2.6x increase. So certainly well withing capabilities of Feruchemy. Also well within capabilities of killing you