Letryx13

That's probably part of it, to be fair. On the other hand, aside from Shallan, Kaladin is the closest we've seen a radiant actually killing their spren. And as I posted in another topic, I suspect Testament's death had its own impact on Shallan. Even if Syl wasn't the direct source of Kaladin's skill, it's not out of the question that her death or near death could have seriously impacted him. But Kaladin's experience with Roshone, Riller, and Laurel had a lasting impact on him. Even before Amaram's betrayal, Kaladin did not like light eyes, or want to be one. His anger is understandable; he was disappointed that light eyes were not noble like stories made them out to be. And I do think that he had generalized the belief to most light eyes by the time of Heleran's attack. He seemed to treat Amaram as the exception to the rule that they were all terrible. Perhaps he didn't think that every light eyes was a monster, but he was definitely disillusioned. Having said that, I agree completely with your assessment of backwards stereotypes. It's very easy to latch onto the idea that all members of a given race, country, faith or whatever are the same. But it's a mistake to do so. I admit that one's a little tricky. It's been mentioned several times that Syl had some connection with Kaladin long before he encountered Heleran, but the other honor spren didn't really start looking until after Syl and Kaladin proved there were still people worthy to be Wind Runners. So I'm not really sure how to gauge that one. Honestly I always just figured that Sanderson wanted Kaladin to be really good with the weapon that makes the most sense for someone to use when flying. It makes sense to use the weapon with the longest reach while in the air.

I wonder why he seemed to lose so much of his ability when he nearly lost Syl. Yes, he was injured at the time, but when he tried to use a spear in the rain during the weeping, it was like he had lost all talent and connection with the spear. And the first time he really mastered flying, he talked this exact subject over with Syl, and their conversation made it seem like part of his talent came from her. Not completely from her, but certainly part of it. I always thought it was mostly about Kaladin's disdain for light eyes more than anything. Sure the bond (or potential bond) might have played some role, but a couple members of bridge 4 that later became radiants, including Teft, didn't have any problem with picking up a Blade to train with it. I know that's different than claiming ownership of one, but still. I think it's much more about how Kaladin didn't want to be a light eyes. Yes, Amaram hadn't shown his true colors to Kaladin yet, but Kaladin still hated light eyes in general at the time. I think he mentions that Amaram is the only light eyes he respects at that point. And when learning to train with Zael with a shard blade, Kaladin thinks about how he'd wanted to kill light eyes since he first picked up a spear.

I've actually wondered why each herald gained the specific surges they did. I wonder if it had anything to do with what surge binding powers they had before coming to Roshar, or if it was based on their personalities. I'm basically copying my post from the thread alder24 shared with you, but here's the better of two orders that came up with. Order: Life Givers, people who like to help and find purpose in people relying on them Surges: Progression and Transformation True Spren- Cooperation Spren, nickname Builders Plate Spren- Hunger Spren Resonance-Enhanced mathematical skill. Useful for determining how much food communities need. Ideal Theme-Supporting life and growth, usually in a charity kind of way Ideals; First-Oath of Radiance Second-I will guard growth and support life Third-I will teach those who need it to support themselves Fourth-I will accept the taking of life, if it is done in the service of life Fifth-I will leave when I am no longer needed Not completely sure about the order of the third and fourth ideals, but I think they're both appropriate. I drew inspiration for this from the Wizard's oath from the Young Wizards series and a couple of other sources.

I suppose that's true. But it seemed like he had figured out a way to free himself from Honor's restrictions, and invalidating the contest doesn't do that. He needs to find a way to get Dalinar to break the rules of the contest (or explicitly release him) in order to free himself. And forcing a draw probably wouldn't do that. And the singers might not be happy either, if they find out they had a chance at the humans leaving them alone and Odium threw it away. At the end of Oathbringer, some seemed more interested in peace than power. Not terribly likely, but possible. Exactly. It's not whether Hoid has explicitly broken the agreements; it's whether or not Odium knows about it. He can't let Odium catch him breaking any agreements with him, or Hoid's protection against Odium is toast.

The problem is that a draw just puts them right back where they started before Dalinar got Odium to agree to a contest. Unless one side could somehow tip the scales of the war in the final ten days, it makes no sense for either side to invalidate the contest. Dalinar had been pushing hard toward the contest of champions, since Honor told him it was their best hope, and the singers aren't likely to want to continue the war either, since the fuzed are as worn out as they are. Sort of agree. He can't take direct action against Odium, but counseling Dalinar and the Radiants probably isn't direct enough to invalidate any kind of agreement they have. He referred to Hoid as a rat scratching at the walls. Which implies that he knows Hoid is working against him, but not directly. I'm not sure what part exactly Hoid would have violated in helping Kaladin in RoW, but maybe it was because Odium was trying to influence Kaladin directly, whereas Hoid was counseling Jasnah, who then counseled Dalinar. It's probably similar to how Odium can influence peoples emotions, like with the Thrill or like how he tried to bend Dalinar into being his champion, but can't inflict physical harm himself. It's another of the sort of loopholes Sanderson works with when having his characters deal with the Shards.

I'm pretty confident that this is the reason he hasn't mentioned being bonded to Gavilar to Dalinar. It wasn't until Dalinar specifically asked if the StormFather knew where the heralds were that he actually told him. But at the same time, he didn't lie either. He could have concealed his knowledge of Ishar, but didn't. It could be that the StormFather is behaving differently with Dalinar simply because he's a better match as a BondSmith. But I think it's a combination of that with the fact that Spren, particularly BondSmith class spren, think very differently from humans.

That would be an interesting direction, and not a bad basis for the end game. My only issue is that damaging the Shards seems to have a negative effect on the world they're attached to. Threnody is a pretty good example of that. There's the rub. Kelsier has always had a problem realizing his shortcomings. Vin pointed out to him that he was basically a nobleman without a title, and she wasn't wrong. While it's true that he may not like inherited inequality, he didn't hesitate to take advantage of people and push people around when he was MistBorn, which is the combat power you mentioned. But the truth is, that there's not a lot of difference between the two. They're both forms of power. The problem with that is there will always be people who have more power than others. Even without investiture, how much power does a beggar have compared to a king? To quote a certain Azish Bridgeman, no matter where you go, you'll always find people who abuse their power. The case on Nalthis is just a perfect example of the power of wealth. On top of that, his methods have severe limitations. The main reason Luthadel didn't burn itself to the ground after Kelsier triggered a rebellion was because of Elend. Granted, nothing short of the kind of drastic measures Kelsier took would have been enough to get the Skaa to rebel, but that still left no small amount of chaos in the city. If Elend hadn't managed to take control of the situation, the Skaa rebels would probably have ended up destroying themselves. Spook, who practically worshipped Kelsier when he was still alive, even recognized this to be true when he went to Orteau. Yes, Ruin was influencing things in that city, but Kelsier was the one that preached hatred and destruction of the nobility. And as far as Kelsier being willing to accept the consequences, I'm not sure he really does. He didn't seem to think through the consequences of his actions a great deal in TFE. He took Vin into Kredik Shaw, convinced Yeden's army they were more powerful than they were, and started a rebellion that he didn't realize the full danger of. I'm not sure what you mean about the Catacendre.

Now that would be an interesting plot twist. I hadn't seen that WoB, I was just going off of what was mentioned in RoW, and so I assumed Radiant's incorporation as inevitable. Thank you for that one. Having said that, I think a compromise would be for Shallan to have the option of assimilating Radiant when achieving her next truth, but not necessarily taking it.

Well, I think that restoring the other dead eyes isn't what's needed to help Shallan. I remember a WoB talking about how she's recovering the same level ideals that she had with testament. I think progressing as a radiant will help her. It could be a coincidence, but I think that realizing what she did to Testament was her third ideal, which is what allowed her to assimilate Veil. I think it's likely that whatever her next truth is, it will allow her to absorb Radiant too, and earn her armor. Which feels fitting, considering that Radiant is the warrior personality. Essentially, re-swearing the ideals will help her repair the bond that she broke with Testament, healing them both. However, you probably do have a point that not all of the ancient radiants experienced the same kind of mental issues as Shallan. I'd be willing to wager a lot of them did suffer issues of some sort, but probably a variety of such problems.

I don't know if anyone has posted something to this effect before, but I think there's a concrete explanation for Shallan's dissociative identity disorder. I might just be dense for posting something that seems obvious to everyone, but here goes. I think the real reason for Shallan's mental problems is because of what happened to Testament. Up to finding out about the Cryptic, we're led to believe that Shallan's mental issues stem from the trauma she experienced when she killed her mother. To be fair, this likely contributed to the problem, but I don't think it's the root cause. I think that when a radiant breaks the mind of their spren, the spren isn't the only one to be damaged by the process. This leads me to wonder what happened to the ancient radiants of the recreance. I've always assumed that the ancient radiants spread stories about a betrayal to make people think they'd been tricked in order to make them hate the radiants so no one would pursue surge binding powers again. But maybe there's more to it. If the minds of the ancient radiants were broken similarly to Shallan, then maybe not all the tales of radiant's being traitors are false.

Technically, Sazed became Emperor before he became Harmony, so he did have the right of rule by inheritance from Elend and Vin, but that's not important. I don't even know that I consider him to be ruling Scadrial. Yes, he influences things and has the kandra try to guide people, but he's not actively controlling things. His religion expressly forbids worshipping him. Yes, he's above the law, but how the heck do you set up a law system for beings that are beyond mortal understanding and control? He helps guide and protect, but that's not always the same thing as a ruler. And in his personal case, he has to be careful about influencing things too much. As to your point about Scadrial accumulating power, I'm not saying they shouldn't try to progress, as that's pretty much always a good thing. But too much power in the wrong hands never ends well. And this is all assuming the Lerasium would be distributed fairly, without wealthy and powerful people trying to monopolize it. Would you really tell someone who lived under The Lord Ruler that one ruler or group with unparalleled power is safe? Kelsier attempting a MistBorn army is the obvious choice if he could, but what would result of that accumulated power? I don't disagree with you, exactly. It makes sense for Scadiral to try and advance themselves technologically and magically. To paraphrase and anime I'm fond of; Foolish are those who wish for power in excess, but equally foolish are those who fear it for no reason. I just think making the entire planet into MistBorn is too close the "excess" end of the spectrum.

I think it's a combination of pretty much everything that has been mentioned, but this is undoubtedly a huge part of it. Odium was really banking on having Dalinar under him, which would he believed would result in his freedom. He threw pretty much everything he had at that plan, and when it failed, he was left to scramble. There are real world examples of such things happening in wars. That, combined with other previously mentioned factors are what's keeping the war so balanced. The fact that Odium's forces couldn't break Taln dragged out the time far longer than would have happened otherwise. Which gave humans more time to progress and the Fused more time to lose themselves.

That much power in potentially the wrong hands is a scary idea, it's what can lead to dictators and conquerers. To answer Kelsier's comment in TLM, I suspect the reason that Preservation didn't want the entire population to have access to allomancy was to prevent Scadrial from being a threat to other worlds, or possibly their own people. I'm not sure about Shades, but I'd much rather Scadrians try to ally with SurgeBinders and Fused, the ones not allied with Odium, rather than face off against them. And considering advancements in technology on Scadrial, Scadrians could probably hold their own in large scale conflicts, if properly organized.

They’re the only two members of the original crew still “alive”, so it’s not surprising that they’d have friction between them. Which will be interesting if and when the church of the survivor and the Parthians ever start a holy war. Up until TLM, I was much more worried about Kelsier than Sazed, since Sazed seemed to have the shards under control and Kelsier’s subordinates are causing trouble on other worlds. But TLM seems to have reversed that impression, with Kelsier appearing more stable than Sazed. I still think Kelsier isn’t as benevolent as he tries to appear. In fact I think he’ll end up a full on villain at some point, but I’m increasingly worried that Discord will be the next big bad for the commerce. I wonder whether Kelsier ever figured out the answer to Vin’s last words to him. Well, her last question, anyway.

In this particular case, I'm not sure it's a matter of intent. This seems much more about chemistry than anything else. Granted, invenstiture is involved, so intent could be an issue, but I think it's much more likely that the resulting explosion simply makes it difficult to tell if any Lerasium and Atium are produced. According to Sazed, only a small amount was produced in that explosion Waxilium caused, so it would be easy to overlook. I'm don't think the Kandra are being completely honest about splitting Harmonium (or Sazium), but as for the Set, they weren't looking for Lerasium; they wanted a powerful explosive. Wax's uncle mentioned wanting something like that in TBoM. They needed something powerful enough to destroy an entire city. I don't think Rashek was all that skilled; he was just so powerful that it didn't matter. And while it's almost certainly true that Kelsier would want Lerasium to get his allomancy back, assuming that would even work in his current state, there's no way he'd stop there. Judging from his conversation with Sazed at the end of TLM, he's very worried about threats from other planets. He'd probably either stockpile the Lerasium to make an army if needed or just start flat out building such an army himself.

I doubt he knew for certain, but he was probably suspicious. He definitely knew Sazed was lying to him when he said that there wasn't a way for Kelsier to come back to "life" in SH. So he knows that Sazed can be deceptive when he wants to be. And don't forget Kel's infamous saying, there's always another secret. Even if he does believe Sazed, he'll probably push to try and figure out how to produce Lerasium on his own. What really interests me is what Kelsier will do if and when he figures out how to make Lerasium. The words "MistBorn Army" come to mind.

I think you're both right. Dalinar was a soldier for decades, and struggled from the start of trying to be a politician, even when trying to work with the other High Princes. And that was in a clearly understood war. Until he figured out how to think like a politician, but in a military mindset at the sometime, he had a hard time talking to people as a politician. But at the same time, everyone knew him as a near savage man. People usually don't trust something that seems completely inconsistent to them, such as a man known for being a violent soldier talking to them diplomatically. He needed to learn to be both diplomatic while still being himself in order to communicate with other politicians. Agreed. It's something another King in the comere, although this one a philosopher turned king turned soldier, had trouble balancing. But once he found out how balance both his military style mind with politics, he had a great deal more success.

Order: Life Savers, basically doctors and people who want to heal. (Going to be very similar to Wind Runners) Surges: Progression and Gravitation True Spren- Serenity Spren, nickname Soothers Plate Spren- Rot Spren Resonance-Enhanced senses. Useful for detecting higher temperatures in patients or irregular heartbeats. Ideal Theme-Protecting life through medicine. Ideals; First-Oath of Radiance Second-I will care for those that need it. Third-All in need are equally deserving of my care. Fourth-I will accept that I can not save everyone. Fifth-I will let those who can, care for themselves. I realized as I started working on this that it was going to be extremely similar to Wind Runners. But considering the conversation between Kaladin and his father at the end of RoW, I don't think that's a bad thing. Mostly, I think that with span reeds on Roshar, that Wind Runner and Edge Dancer teams could make great mobile hospitals/ambulances. This order is just a combination of their powers for that purpose.

That was how I read the scene too. Taravangian managed to strike Rayse directly, so the vessel got hit, but there was too much investiture for NightBlood to consume, so it basically just gorged itself until it was full.

Unfortunately, Tanavast is probably gone for good. Bringing him back is almost certainly impossible. The most of him that we could see is a spiritual realm vision. Reassembling the shard of Honor on the other hand, is almost certainly doable. And very likely is the something that will be a major plot point in either book 5 or the back half of SA. Personally, I'm hoping some well known, but not super important, character like Lopen ends up with the shard.

Not really arguing with you either; it just seems like while it's certainly possible that Odium had help, there's nothing beyond speculation that he did. I'm not saying at all that he couldn't have had help from one of the other shards, I just don't think there's enough to say that it actually happened. True, but so far, there's nothing to suggest that's happened. The Storm Father explicitly states that it's the combined power of Honor and Cultivation that keeps Odium bound. He compares the Oathpact to that binding when revealing the history of the heralds to Dalinar and Navani. I actually forgot that she was revered in eastern Roshar. It just always seemed like if she was involved in the fight against Odium, then she would have taken over Honor's role as a unifying deity after his death. But then again she's more about nature than people, so it all feel murky. Possible, sure. But there's nothing to suggest that happened. Again, possible, but nothing to suggest it happened either. As you yourself said, we don't know much about Honor's death, so it's hard to say how his death differs from Devotion and Dominion. I admit, I didn't know that Autonomy was involved in what happed to Devotion and Dominion, but we still don't really know what happened with them either, aside from their power being locked away somehow. Sure, Odium probably used the original agreement between the 16 against them, but Sanderson has also confirmed the the shards of Devotion and Dominion oppose each other, and that likely played a role too. As for Honor and Cultivation being united, while Rayse may have known they were a couple before ascending, the power of the shards can change people, as proved by Ati and Ruin. One of the WoB you referenced suggests that Aona and Skye were a couple before ascending as well, but we know they opposed each other after ascending. The power can change people, and Odium knows that. But this is a tangent. If you want to debate this further, let's start a new topic.

I agree that Cultivation siding with Odium makes no sense, and I admit the numbers advantage is suggestive. But so far, there's been nothing mentioning any of the other shards ever being anywhere near Roshar. The three moons over the planet are supposed to be a reference to the three gods, from what I understand. And while it's true that Cultivation helped Honor against Odium, the biggest thing we know of is that her power combined with Honor's to trap Odium. At least, according to the Storm Father. But there wasn't much mention of her being involved in the desolations, since most of the humans on Roshar don't know about her. Dalinar wasn't even aware there was a third god until Odium mentioned her. So I don't think she played much of a role in the desolations after things got started. Sure, Autonomy or a different shard could have helped Odium in a deal with him for one reason or another. But there's been no mention of that at all, and the Storm Father specifically referenced Odium as the most dangerous of the 16, so he knows about the other shards. And one of Honor's messages to Dalinar in the vision specifically mentions that he can't fight "him" any longer, not "them". My best guess for why Odium would try to take on Honor and Cultivation alone is that he assumed he could pit them against each other, as he likely did against Devotion and Dominion. But Devotion and Dominion were already opposed to each other, and I don't think Honor and Cultivation were. So I think Odium underestimated how united they'd be against him.

I know a lot of people think that Odium was scared off by Tanavast's remnants or something similar when Dalinar said his third ideal, but I have two problems with it. First, multiple characters have emphasized how dead Tanavast is. The StormFather, Rabonial, Kelek, and I think Odium himself even does at one point. And second, the way Odium reacted when Dalinar spoke his ideal, "No, we killed you! We killed you!" makes me think that he's seeing something other than Tanavast. Yes, it's someone/something he expected to be dead, but it sounds like he was seeing someone/something that more than one person played a role in killing. While we don't know exactly how Odium killed Honor, there's nothing to suggest that Odium had help. Sure, he could be referring to his forces, but Rayse was the kind of narcissist that wouldn't give people that kind of credit. It's a little off the wall, but I think Odium could see more clearly into the spiritual realm, something Ishar later supports, when Dalinar spoke his third ideal. And I think he saw that Adonalsium wasn't dead after all. That the "we" Odium was referring to were the original sixteen and Hoid. A little nuts, perhaps, but that's my theory.

I doubt many people who've read or listened to WoK could forget exactly what got Rock thrown in the bridge crews. But putting chull dung in someone's food and murdering someone are slightly different. As for Kaladin, this is exactly my point. His single-mindedness in seeking revenge against Amaram and Elhokar was what nearly cost him his bond with Syl. As Kaladin and Syl discuss later, Kaladin knew allowing the assassination was wrong; he was just so angry and Elhokar that he didn't care anymore. Mental instability isn't what drove him, anger and hatred did. But with a little help, they all managed to pull themselves out of it. Considering how good Sanderson is at turning assumptions around in stories, such as the true identities of the VoidBringers not once but twice, I can't agree with that. Sanderson makes it seem like the couple died because of the imprisonment, but despite the subject coming up twice, we still don't know their cause of death. And the wording about the circumstances is just a little too careful for me to accept that there's not something more to it. It would have been extremely simple for Moash or Dalinar to add in a throwaway line about how they'd been stabbed by other prisoners or died of some disease or something. And while I admit it's a little less vague about their guilt or innocence, considering Rashone was punished for their deaths, we don't even know what they were accused of, let alone any certainty about their guilt or innocence. The set up is just too perfect for me to believe that it's a coincidence. There's just enough wiggle room that I'm certain this is going to be a plot twist in book 5. I do consider Moash to be mentally stable, at least until Odium get's ahold of him. The guilt was starting to eat at him a little at the start of Oathbringer, but he rationalized his behavior away as soon as it was convenient for him. Whatever he was dealing with, it was nowhere near what the heralds have had to deal with. Nale's mind is unhinged from centuries of torture, it's not a reasonable comparison. And there's at least some objective justification to siding with the Singers in the war. Roshar originally belonged to them, after all. I'd still like to knock his teeth in for what he did to that street urchin in Yedaw, but that's a different subject. Moash intended to kill Elhokar from the start; nobody had to talk him into anything, even if the rope assassination attempt wasn't his idea. He explicitly tells Kaldin that was why he came to the shattered plains in the first place. Admittedly, psychological torture can be severe. But there are other ways to deal with that, even on a world like Roshar. Rashone may not have been imprisoned for what he did, but he was exiled, so some justice was applied. Not enough, in my opinion, but as Dalinar points out, the situation is more complicated than that. On the other hand, if the people Moash cares about are so important to him, why was he willing to turn on Kaladin so easily? A man who had pulled him out of damnation, a man who had given him a blade and plate worth a king's ransom, a man Moash said he would never outrank? Moash was willing to kill Kaladin to get his revenge. He turned on his savior as soon as that savior was inconvenient for him. I admit, Moash somehow turning around and managing to make the difference in taking down Odium is pretty much the only thing I can think of that could redeem him. I just don't see it happening. I don't believe his is sorry for what he's done, and he refuses to see himself for the monster that he is, even when free of Odium's control. I think that's why stormlight doesn't heal his eyes. Unless someone can admit to their mistakes, there's no hope for redemption.