RedBlue

I should probably have specified. When I say ‘spacefaring culture’ in a cosmere context, I’m talking about the ability to move large numbers of people between star systems regularly and quickly, using any method. I’m aware that there’s a difference between travelling through Shadesmar and using FTL in the physical realm, but in many cases, the end result will be the same.

I don’t think it’s entirely disinformation. The ban on aetherbound serving the Malwish seems genuine. If the Malwish could have aetherbound working for them openly, that would be more effective than having to sneak around. I think what we’re looking at is political tension between the Malwish and the aethers, resulting in the aetherbound being banned in some way from working with the Malwish. The Malwish have found a way to circumvent this ban in a few cases (maybe just one case). This means the Malwish have access to reliable intel about how aethers and aetherbound work, but they can’t openly make use of the aetherbound skillset or they’ll risk giving away their sources.

We get quite a few insights and hints into the cosmere’s big-picture political situation, and I’m making this post to try to put some puzzle pieces together. Scadrial and Roshar are major superpowers. They are the two planets making a play for Drominad, and there are numerous references to those two being the big fish of the cosmere. There are several other spacefaring powers of note including Dhatri, Yolen, Silverlight, and Taldain. Sel and Nalthis are not mentioned much in this book, but should probably also go on the list. Everyone is scared of Threnodite shades, but it’s unclear how organised and cohesive the Threnodites are as a political entity. Lumar and Drominad are likely to count as notable powers following the events of this book. Scadrial is not politically unified judging by the separation between the Northern culture and the Malwish culture. The Malwish Empire has its own prime minister and its own military that is distinctly Malwish, and has no cultural features in common with the Northerners that I noticed. This is especially interesting as it suggests the tension between the north and south is still unresolved, and possibly a big part of what drives their rapid technological advancement (and aggressive territorial expansion). Going forward, we should keep in mind that planets in the cosmere are (generally) home to several people groups that are not necessarily unified under one government by the space age. It is probably more correct to view Scadrial as two powers, not one, and that may go for Roshar as well. The ‘Silverlight Accords’ form an international law that even the biggest superpowers have to at least pay lip service to. It seems that no single power has the ability to fight against all the other powers at once, which keeps their behaviour somewhat in line. The Accords have rules about how much a spacefaring culture is allowed to interfere with an industrial culture, and in what circumstances. These rules are designed not to limit contact, but to limit unchecked conquest. Silverlight views Hoid as a notorious outlaw, which suggests he is acting against most political powers’ interests and is effective enough to scare them. There are hundreds of accessible, inhabited planets currently documented as per Dajer’s slide show. It’s fair to assume that these are public knowledge, not military secrets, or the military wouldn’t be showing the slide show presentation to outsiders. (And yes, Dajer is unreliable, but photographic evidence is photographic evidence.) The discovery of a new planet is an exciting event in academia, with implications for business and political interests. Of these known planets, dozens have spacefaring cultures judging by the number of people groups from different planets that can be found in Silverlight. This implies that not every spacefaring culture is a notable political power. There are many more undocumented, unexplored planets which may be inhabited. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands. Following the events of the book and the availability of Navigators, there is likely to be a discovery boom and a rush to claim land and resources, which will have a big impact on the balance of power. There are several non-human species with human-like intelligence out there. Dragons and Sleepless are the obvious politically relevant ones, but there are more we haven’t heard of, including ones with different physical requirements than humans. The Shards are still relevant in that you don’t mess with them or take them lightly, but they seem to avoid direct involvement most of the time. There is uncertainty around what happened to Virtuosity and what is going on with Autonomy, so there is a degree of mystery still there.

I think we have enough info to speculate more on the evolution of the words and the myth. The original myth was likely about a type of monster known as daccwaga, and there were pre-existing stories about them serving the heroes who defeat them. As Cakoban’s greatly embellished story was passed down the generations, ‘the daccwaga’ shifted to ‘the Dakwara,’ and the belief shifted from a category of monsters to one unique monster. The earlier stories of the earlier heroes were gradually forgotten or engulfed by the more popular Cakoban myth. The parts of the Cakoban myth that don’t fit into the actual events of his story, such as the ‘giants of Epelli,’ are likely fragments of those earlier myths. The shooting star guide might also be a motif from those earlier myths that got transposed onto the Cakoban myth when the Current was too hard to understand or depict.

Notably, the newly built Aviaries represent a very different way of producing Aviars, so it’s likely that even the Eelakin don’t know what varieties and powers will be available in the next few years. They’re still experimenting with taking ‘non-Aviar’ chicks like Sak to Patji. Those will develop new powers. Experimenting with crossbreeds will likely result in new powers, too. And, further down the road, they could try raising chicks that aren’t native to Drominad on Patji. Or they could see what happens when they feed the glow worms to other types of animal.

I’m not convinced that Kelsier has much influence over the Malwish by Era 2. The Sovereign is spoken of as a mythological figure, not a person with real political power. He might have some cultural/religious influence, but that doesn’t count for much in the face of a real government that disagrees.

As much as I would like to draw conclusions from Huio being alive and well, this fact alone doesn’t tell us much other than Huio survives the event of Stormlight. There are just too many plausible ways in which one person’s lifespan could be lengthened beyond conventional limits.

Notably, the dragon is Frost. Which raises a bunch of questions about how and why Frost came to be involved, and why he later became so opposed to interfering with the outside world. Also: how accurate is the myth when it says Cakoban ‘made a deal’ with the dragon? Was there a formal deal, or is this just a misremembering of a friendship? If there was a deal, is it still in effect?

I find it interesting that the book 2 plot has been moved up to book 1. Catching a serial killer sounded like it would have been a bit of a step down in terms of scope from Era 1. Maybe, with the groundwork having been laid in Wax & Wayne, Ghostbloods will be able to start with the wider-world plot stuff like the Cold War instead of building up to it. It leaves me wondering if this means book 2 will get an entirely new plot.

Fair enough. That seems reasonable.

In large manuscripts, typos are really easy to miss, which is why a few slip through in each book. Nobody misses an entire sentence with a statistic for the number of people who die each day, and checking that the statistic is in the right ballpark is very easy for anyone with access to the current worldbuilding notes, Google, and a calculator.

Given that Sanderson employs his own in-house editorial team, including a continuity checker, I would be shocked if an error this obvious and easy to check had somehow gone unnoticed. I think they ran the numbers and that it’s intentional.

My takeaway from the ‘billions dying every day’ line is that the cosmere is bigger than we previously thought. The WOBs limiting it to a few hundred star systems with a few dozen habitable planets are on the older side, and it wouldn’t be the first time Brandon changed his mind about an element of worldbuilding after it became relevant in the books. Back-of-the-envelope calculations: the real world has roughly 150,000 deaths per day. To have a death rate of around one billion per day, you need seven thousand Earths (ish). Factor in that space age planets are likely to have higher population density, and that geo-engineered systems may have multiple inhabited planets and moons, you need a few thousand inhabited star systems for a billion deaths per day to be routine. That I’m aware of, this doesn’t contradict anything in the published canon. There could be a handful of ‘space powers’ with huge population centres that are relevant to the metaplot, and few thousand planets with Tress-level technology that are considered unimportant backwaters.

From the look of the beta rules, multiclassing is encouraged and more powerful than in D&D. Players are encouraged to progress on paths that are relevant to the skills they’ve been using during gameplay, and gaining levels on certain paths are conditional on meeting specific goals during gameplay (you have to attract a spren, bond it, and do the oaths thing for a Radiant path, for example).

Setting aside the fact that Scadrian society looks to be doing just fine in Sunlit Man, a small community of refugees doesn’t pose a threat to Scadrial. I would be more worried about the conflict between the Scadrian continents. And the conflict between Harmony’s Intents. Even Kelsier is more likely to blow them all up by accident than the Rosharan refugees are to somehow conquer the Basin.

I’m on board with the theory that Taln had a Dawnshard and now has some kind of anti-breaking compulsion. It makes some disparate pieces fit together very neatly. It makes sense with the weird, scattered references to Dawnshards being used (or known) in the deep past. It makes sense as part of a human plot to kill a Shard. It explains how Taln was able to hold out for so long. It explains why Brandon is introducing the concept of Dawnshards here in this series, instead of waiting for them to become relevant in Dragonsteel. It also explains why the other Heralds view abandoning Taln as such a huge betrayal. Because if Taln was able to say no at any time, where’s the betrayal? If Taln chose to stay on Braize, that’s essentially him giving tacit consent to the other Heralds’ plan for him to shoulder the burden alone. But if Taln was unable to refuse, that’s what makes it a terrible betrayal. Incidentally, I don’t see breaking under torture as a character flaw, any more than getting hungry or tired is a character flaw. It’s how human bodies work, not a personality problem or a bad decision. Taln can be an awesome hero without being inhumanly resistant to pain.

I think the Returned are unusual in needing to consume Investiture to stay alive. The Fused use Voidlight for Surgebinding, but Leshwi has been cut off from it and she survived. Spren, seons etc (not technically Cognitive Shadows, but made of the same stuff) don’t need to consume Investiture to stay sapient in the Physical Realm; they only need a Connection. I don’t know how the Heralds work, but I’ve never gotten the sense that they need to be continually drawing Investiture from Honor to remain functional. I think it’s more likely that Cognitive Shadows need only a Connection to function in the Physical Realm, and the Returned can maintain their Connection by consuming Investiture periodically.

The Hierocracy strikes me as a plot device. (This isn’t a criticism — it’s a good plot device.) Its function in the story is to make sure scholar characters (Jasnah et al.) don’t know too much too early, because that would ruin the fun of discovery. It also facilitates some of the conflict in the earlier books by making characters more hesitant to reveal their Radiant powers than they otherwise would be. So, in the absence of further evidence, I’m not expecting any big reveals related to the Hierocracy. It has served its purpose.

Hoid wasn’t on Roshar during the Recreance or the events surrounding it. It’s easy to brush past this fact because it’s a big cosmere and he has other stuff to do, but isn’t it weird? Hoid has a particular interest in Roshar and making sure the status quo there gets kept, and he apparently has magical means of knowing where he ‘needs’ to be. Why didn’t he come running at the first sign of trouble on Roshar? How could he miss the death of one of the original Vessels? I don’t have a concrete theory on this, just a bunch of speculation. Maybe Fortune isn’t as reliable or consistent as we assume it is. Maybe Fortune has its own agenda, somehow, and kept Hoid away from the action this one time because he would have messed up Fortune’s plans. Maybe there was something else as huge as Tanavast’s death going on somewhere else in the cosmere, and Hoid opted to attend that event instead. (Was it Virtuosity’s Splintering? Or maybe Scadrial was having a previous Well of Ascension episode and Hoid helped to keep Ruin trapped? Or something we haven’t heard of?) Maybe Hoid just dropped the ball? (I hope not. That’s a really boring explanation.) Does anyone else feel like there’s something going on here?

I think it’s definitely a theme in the Cosmere that people aren’t meant to handle the power of a Shard, and those who do will suffer consequences. I hope it doesn’t turn into a ‘this was all Adonalsium’s plan from the start’ deal, though. It’s more interesting when the human and human-adjacent characters have real agency and make decisions themselves.

Out of genuine curiosity: what do you make of Hamlet? Was killing Claudius, the king, an ‘objectively immoral’ course of action? Do you believe that Shakespeare intended to present this as a genuine moral quandary, or is that just something audiences have projected onto the play since the early 20th century, in your opinion?

I had assumed the Heralds don’t manifest bodies on Braize with Oathpact 2.0.

I took the ‘strength of Adonalsium’ line to mean that it’s a law of nature. The Shards are obligated to follow certain rules because that’s the way things are, and the way they have been since Adonalsium’s time. I never got the sense that the Wind was fuelling the Oathpact (either the original or 2.0). The Oathpact uses Honor’s power, and the Wind predates Honor.

Reading reactions from other people who didn’t like Dalinar’s ending, it seems to me the problem isn’t that a large chunk of readers are confused by what Dalinar did. Most understand it, but some disagree with it. As in, they think that releasing Odium was a bad play, and that Dalinar should have killed Gavinor and taken the temporary ceasefire instead. (And it’s worth noting that the book explains Dalinar’s plan three times. Once when Adolin is teaching Yanagawn to play Towers, once when Dalinar actually goes through with it, and once when Hoid figures it out. It’s very clear.) People disagreeing with Dalinar’s decision isn’t a writing problem, it’s people having differing opinions about what are acceptable risks and how to prioritise conflicting needs.

After the time skip, Lift will be in her mid-twenties and Gav in his mid-thirties. I suppose that’s not an unworkable age difference, but it’s large enough that I don’t consider it an ‘obvious’ pairing, especially when there’s not really anything else to suggest they would be good together. And Lift is immature right now because she’s a child. I don’t know how mature she will be as a young adult.