Argent

You guys got to ask so many questions, and you had so much time... I am really jealous! On topic though, I am kind of surprised the Radiants were a part of the Oathpact. I was under the impression that it was between Honor and the Heralds - didn't we have another signing where Brandon told us that? Maybe the Heralds brought them in later... The Honorblades being crafter... by Honor? I really really want to throw the word Dawnshard somewhere in here. Also. More life in Greater Roshar, am I reading this right? Just... non-sentient? Theocracy and mage-ocracy on Roshar at one point? The former has to be the, um... that time when the Vorin church went all batstormscrazy. But the latter? When the Radiants were essentially ruling everything from Urithiru? No! You never said things like "this is probably RAFO material" or "you are probably not going to answer this." Haven't you learned anything from past signings?

If this is actually how those keteks work, and if they reveal major plot points (as we know), I've been grossly underestimating the amount of work that goes into them...

That's a chull there, not a chasmfiend. Though no-so-baby Renarin did jump in front of an actual chasmfiend rather readily... I love that he has darker hair on the cover. Incorporating feedback FTW!

No, he has said multiple times that he is hoping for the end of 2015. Peter seems skeptical about this...

But that's comparing learning one language to learning another. The topic is about learning languages in general - or maybe as opposed to learning other things.

The reason I asked this question was because somebody had pretty much the exact same theory a while back But the Stormlight dissipation rate could be explained in a number of ways. One, it seems like when a Surgebinder draws Stormlight in, it doesn't go to a gemheart or anything, or flows with their breath and blood; at least that's how the descriptions go. Or you could also consider that gemhearts, when they are first pulled out of the greatshell's chrysalis, are pretty raw. Unevenly shaped. And we know that you need a very specific cut for your gem to hold Light - the more imperfect the gem's shape is, the faster it will lose its charge. So that's not really an argument against it. How and why the Voidbringers - the listeners' voidforms? - can hold Stormlight perfectly, that's another good question... This being said, I could never buy into the whole "Surgebinders have gemhearts" theory. It feels too weird to me, I guess. I am more willing to attribute their ability to draw and hold Stormlight to reasons similar to the ones that allowed... Mistborn: Hero of Ages Spoilers

I could fix that for you, for now

It's unfortunate naming. When the Steelhunt was announced, the 17S created the Shardhunt, the site's own version of it - one based not on finding cards in bookstores or going to signings, but on... solving problems create by the staff. Now Brandon's Steelhunt 2.0, the Shardhunt (again, all about going to signings and pillaging bookstores for Szeth cards), has the same name and the terminology is messy. The status of the respective hunts is: Steelhunt - complete Shardhunt (17S) - complete. The pages and hints might still be there, but the content you could get from it was the same as the content from the Steelhunt, and that's publicly available now, so there is no point in doing it Shardhunt (Brandon / Steelhunt 2.0) - in progress. It comes with all the Steelhunt content we unlocked, visible "out of the box," but also has 4 (for now) entries exclusive to it, again publicly available

It's Khriss. And yea, that lanky ardent sketching bridgemen is probably our best candidate - he is certainly the one I am rooting for. His motivations and abilities, however, are a mystery. Why would anyone care about the specific tattoos of Bridge 4 (unless he was just collecting in-world samples of writing)? The page with Shallan's notes on Pattern, that I can understand - it's interesting to anyone who wants to know more about the magic on Roshar. Navani's ketek? Who knows... I am going to stick with the "collecting in-world samples of writing" for now, but it's a very weak hypothesis. Who would need that, after all? His abilities are what interests me at the moment. He went to the bottom of the ocean in order to retrieve a page! Even if he used Shadesmar, or some other form of transportation, how did he not get crushed down there? Not to mention that finding a page in an ocean is probably even more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack.

@Chlehrma, it looks like you are focusing more on the divine attributes themselves, and that's something I specifically didn't want to do (my Kaladin write-up notwithstanding). Both Lift's and Ym's (assuming he would've been an Edgedancer, which sounds likely, but not guaranteed) could be attributed to just plain ol' human compassion and empathy. Same with Kaladin's leadership (which means I mostly retract my original write-up, I'll revise it), Shallan's (artistic) creativity. and Jasnah's wisdom and careful consideration. I guess what I am saying is that you need those attributes in order to attract the appropriate spren and begin the bonding process. Maybe the Nahel bond enhances them - but that's not my point at all. The time Kaladin spoke the Words of the Second Ideal, he thought that Stormlight can't give you something you don't already have; Stormlight perfects. My idea was that each Order's members get an ability that can be used without the need for Stormlight. Shallan doesn't need it for taking Memories. Jasnah doesn't seem to need it for orientation. Kaladin... what does Kaladin do that seems like a magical ability, but doesn't require Stormlight? And, honestly, I don't know - he is a really good soldier, so both his fighting and leadership could be mostly natural; Syl certainly helps, at least with the former, but I am not sure if this counts (mostly because he seemed to have a natural talent even back when he was a young teen). @Swimmingly, I wasn't suggesting that Renarin can actually see the future as his passive ability, just that it gives him a measure of insight. Simply understanding people's motivations and feelings is enough to give you an idea about what they are going to do in a given situation; except in Renarin, this understanding could be on steroids (the same way Shallan's memory can go into overdrive, and Jasnah's spacial awareness might). Truthwatching, in my mind, would actually require Stormlight - no amount of deductive or inductive reasoning can give you the knowledge that the Everstorm will be created X days from today.

Eh. It's a type of intelligence. Part of learning a new language is sheer memorization - can't speak without a vocabulary. But another, perhaps even more important part, is understanding how the different sentence and speech elements fit together, making the connections with other languages you know, and to an extent even understanding the native speakers' culture. There is memorization to languages, and there is science, and there is art.

Ot was in Chicago signing. I don't have on on record (phone ate some 15 minutes or so), but I remember it. Titles of all the books are tentative at this point, no point discussing that particular topic.

Another thing I considered for Kaladin was grace - Syl certainly is graceful enough, especially when she flies around him as he fights or practices. So I could go with that. Lift's ability comes from the Nightwatcher, we agree on this. I was saying that because we know this thing doesn't come from Wyndle, we don't know what does. What Jasnah was saying is that Shallan's art, in general, comes from her cognitive aspect getting it from Shadesmar essentially. She herself can't see the spren, the living ideas, there but perhaps she and all artists are more in touch with their cognitive aspects, which in turn can see those ideas.

Getting an idea about how events will unfold unless something unexpected is introduced to the system, this kind of stuff? I would like to agree, but it sounds almost too much like his Truthwatching... I don't think those abilities change you are. They are exactly what I describe - abilities. And Dalinar hasn't show anything too extraordinary so far, at least not anything that sounds like it could come from his spren. No, I treat all members of a given Order the same way. All Windrunners are good leaders (I do see the problem with the idea of them being good "bonders" or "uniters"... I am thinking about a solution). All Lightweavers are good at arguing, debating, convincing, persuading. All Elsecallers have a good sense of direction, and so on.

One of the questions I asked Brandon during his visit to Chicago had to do with what looked like special abilities some of the Radiants-in-training we've seen exhibit. I suggested that Shallan has the ability to take perfect Memories, Jasnah has an incredible sense of direction, and Kaladin is a naturally skilled fighter. Brandon agreed that those skills are supernatural in nature (though scholars disagree - which I can see happening if the spren are considered natural by some, and supernatural by others; if such a debate exists, and those abilities depend somehow on spren, then it's likely that there is a connection here). He also added that I might not have all three examples 100% correct - and now that I think about it, Kaladin's feels kind of lame. So here's the theory I suggest: The Knights Radiant gain not the ability to influence the natural world through Surgebinding from their Nahel bond, they also acquire some of their spren's abilities, but in a weaker form. Let's look at the Surgebinders and spren pairs we know of: Shallan & Pattern This couple is really the base of my theory. We know that Shallan can take a perfect visual Memory of things, a snapshot of reality, and we also know that Pattern can reproduce light and sound perfectly. Perhaps this is where Shallan's ability came from. It's worth mentioning that Shallan didn't always have this ability - we see her practicing in her flashback chapters, but I suspect the need to practice was a part of her recovery from repressing her memories of Pattern. I am toying with the idea that Shallan also has the ability to... persuade people, to change their minds, to change them - to transform them, in other words. There is some evidence for this: she is pretty good at convincing people to do what she wants - getting Jasnah to take accept her as a ward, convincing her to not only keep her around but also confide into her, getting Tvlakv to change his route and take her to the Shattered Plains, persuading Vathah and his deserters to fight against the bandits and save the caravaners, getting Sebarial to go along with her bluff and pay her the outrageous price she named, intriguing Adolin enough to make the boy to at least consider love for her. There are more, of course, and so it seems like a lot of what Shallan does is transforming people. This, if true, would give her one "passive" for each Surge, something that makes sense to me. But there is already little enough support for the original theory, I don't want to look too much into a derivative one. Jasnah & Ivory We don't really know anything about Ivory, but he must have control over the Surges of Transportation and Transformation. If Jasnah does indeed have a superior sense of geolocation, it could easily come from her spren. Transformation doesn't seem to fit too well with her, so I won't look for support for that derivative theory here. Not yet, at least. Kaladin & Syl I had to think pretty hard (read: over 10 seconds) about this one. Syl's control over gravity doesn't seem to endow Kaladin with insane yo' momma jokes, and her Adhesion Surge doesn't manifest itself directly... until you remember that she first thought she was a bondspren, she "holds things together." And this is exactly what Kaladin does - he held Bridge 4 together so hard, its members refuse to let go of the name even now. He is also pretty tight with Dalinar, and now with Adolin. Renaring and Elhokar both confided in him, essentially seeking his his help and advice respectively about how to fit in, how to become what they are supposed to be. There is the divine attribute of leadership too, of course. So now I don't actually think Kaladin's fighting skills are supernatural - it's his ability to hold people together, one way or another. Ym & ??? I am not sure we can get anything out of Ym - not only is his bond is pretty fresh, we don't see much of him. Lift & Wyndle So, Wyndle has mastery over the Surges of Progression and Abrasion. Unfortunately, much of Lift's thoughts and actions are impulsive, so we never get to see her deep personality (except for when she cares about those who are forgotten, but that alone is not really an ability). The one unexplained supernatural ability she has, her ability to metabolize food into Stormlight, is accounted for enough to know that Wyndle is not responsible for it. Plus, I am not even sure how Wyndle's two Surges would express themselves passively in Lift... Renarin & Glys I am not too sure about Renarin, but I think he taps into Glys' power over Illumination for some pretty heavy duty insight. I recall the first book mentioning how Renarin has the habit of looking at people in a way that makes them uncomfortable, as if he were staring into their soul, dissecting them, figuring them out. Perhaps not the best explanation, but it feels like it fits and is certainly better than trying to match him against Progression. Dalinar & The Stormfather Those two don't really apply. Their bond is even fresher than Ym's, and while it's possible that the whole "Dalinar has been bonding with him for a long time" could've give Dalinar something, I half doubt it, half don't want to explore it.

Here are the questions and answers from Chicago.

Yea, when I saw it during the signing I was all like "Whaaaaaaat, this was meant to be an actual book?"

Well, there is the acronym tag... It's about as hard to use as the link / URL one, and can do nifty things, like: PAFO

And this, in a nutshell, is all we know. There has to be some anti-God (though Adonalsium might not be really a god - we just call him that because it's easy to think of it this way), or some organization whose combined power is enough to shatter him.

Treating those words is probably the wrong way to interpret them. Think of the Stormfather as a normal person, not... as whatever you think of him as. It makes a lot more sense then: "MEN RIDE THE STORMS NO LONGER" Sounds like a simple statement of fact - the Windrunners have been gone for thousands of years. If it's really the Stormfather who kicked Kaladin out of his vision / storm ride, it's probably because he considers the highstorms to be his domain now, and he protects them fiercely from the people who dislikes so strongly. You know, because they essentially killed a ton of his daughters. The Stormfather is not a god. We haven't seen gods in any of Brandon's books, The Stormfather is just a vessel for most of the power of Honor, who was the closest thing to a god this world has seen. This is a statement of intent, not a prophecy. "I won't be your Shards" is what he says.

I don't think we have a canon for those. I've never seen Liar of Partinel abbreviated LoP, or The Way of Kings - WoK (it's always TWoK whenever I encounter it). I've never seen WoP either, but WoB is commonly used for Word of Brandon - confirmed canon.

We know this is the case. Every thing, living or not, exists in all three realms - Shai told us so in The Emperor's Soul. But yes, I speculated a long time ago that the reason the mists on Scadrial can't enter buildings has something to do with the idea of a building, its cognitive aspect. Not so long ago I wondered what defines a sphere being "outside" - because on Roshar spheres need to be left "out" in a highstorm to be recharged, so something has to differentiate. I figured it once again has to do with what is considered a building, as they separate the inside from the outside. A fully enclosed basket hanging on a tree would still be considered outside, and so the spheres inside it would charge up, even if they themselves are never in directly touch with the highstorm.

Hmm, interesting. I've been working under the assumption that the Radiants were misunderstood, but now that you bring this up (and force me to reread The Way of Kings again), I am starting to think there must be some truth in the traditional story.

I believe Brandon has acknowledged that this is an actual problem. His mistake.

Actually Brandon confirmed that all ten books will be named after in-world books. Thus The Stormlight Archive.