Cheese Ninja

Love Steris now? She's been pure gold since her first appearance.  Going back five and a half years:
 

I like Steris too. It looks to me like her and Marasi are both potential kidnapping targets.

She's just so hardworking when it comes to her responsibilities, and so far they don't seem to have given her any joy. I would feel bad for her if she goes the whole book without getting to have any fun. Plus, I don't think Brandon has pulled a romantic interest switcheroo on us yet in any of his books. Let Marasi end up with Wayne, he seems like he could deal with her fangirling better than Wax.

I didn't notice the Wax and Wayne thing either...

 
So obviously the Marasi/Wayne thing didn't happen, but Marasi has at least grown up a lot since the first few chapters of AoL.  I'm happy with both those things.
 
But I'm much happier that Wax and Steris are finally married.  I still want Steris to punch Wayne in the face at some point for his dickishness to her in the past.  Steris did finally get several chances to have fun in BoM, and was very cute about it in the process.

Good stuff,

I partially expected that Telsin would turn out to working with their uncle at each stage of the story, from her being bait to lure Wax, from her botching of their rescue attempt, but was never 100% sure.  I feel like having the spearhead as the Bands was a bit sloppy from a hidden treasure point of view.  Sure, it's subterfuge, but it was also too easy to get to, probably took Wayne less than 30 seconds to grab.

Steris continues to be best girl.  I feel bad for those of you who didn't realize that from the first few spoiler chapters of Alloy of Law.

I really wanted someone to punch Wayne in the face for ruining the initial wedding, even if Wax wasn't quite ready to commit at that point.  I'm glad that Wax stopped him from talking rust about best girl near the end of the book.

The whole Lord Ruler thing didn't seem to quite match up with the facts from the first time we're told it.  Oddly enough, despite Kelsier being dead and never having Feruchemical powers, it still makes more sense to me that he took his place for the Southerners.  We had already been told that he was partially? holding Preservation after his death, and never moved on to the cosmere's version of afterlife.  Rashek on the other hand, seemed to go from being dead to just being more dead.

I actually didn't realize there was going to be another book with these characters after this one.

Can I ship Steris with all of the people? Or SterisxSteris?

 

Seriously, damnation. I liked her in Alloy of Law, but Shadows of Self has propelled her to... one of my favorite characters from the Cosmere, period.

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3686-steris-appreciation-thread

I made that thread over two years ago.  Steris the best girl in Alloy of Law.  I'm still trying to argue her as a tsundere, but some people complain that she hasn't gone "dere" enough yet, also, some people in that thread confusedly thought that tsunderes have to be violent, which isn't correct.

Still shipping her with Wax, even if she's better than he deserves.

Besides the Wayne/MeLaan interaction, which was primarily non-romanic, none of the other characters really had much interaction in Shadows of Self that made me want to actually ship them at all.  Wayne and Marasi worked together in a few places, but none of it was interesting.

I didn't see the Lessie thing coming, and it bothered me because Wax can faintly detect hemalurgic spikes, as he did with TenSoon.  So he spend years around Lessie and never noticed that she had two sources of metal inside her body?

I did expect them to stop Bleeder by adding a second spike from the beginning, and found it odd that no one actually mentioned the option until after the fact.

I agree with Arkennys, Steris contined to be best girl, and got even better.  Wax should appreciate and treat her a bit better, and I don't understand Wayne's assholish attitude to her either.  Maybe Wayne was just feeling snappish since Tesla (Tarcsel, halfway between an anagram and portmandeau with "arc") girl reminded him of the girl whose father he killed, but acting that way towards best girl Steris annoyed me.  I imagine most of Wax's emotional distance is Lessie-related, both before and after the reveal, but how can you not love Steris?

Hoid is Wax's carriage driver... I kept expecting either him or Sazed to say something about it, but we never even saw Hoid.

Shardpool in the broadsheet, Trell is another Shard and the main antagonist in this trilogy?  Things got a lot more Cosmerey.

I really wanted to lock this poll after WoR came out, but I couldn't find a way to do that.  Not that I think people would be so shameless as to change their vote or to vote after something has already been confirmed...

And although WoR stated it was Helaran, we have a new host of questions in relation to him.

Basically, who was he working for and why?

It's apparent that I was wrong about the Shards being loaned to Helaran temporarily, he'd had them for some time.  And Mraize says that he "sought the Skybreakers" but doesn't say if he found them or even whether he was allied with the Ghostbloods, as Amaram assumed.  Shallan's father's lines about "his new friends" pushes it a bit towards being the Skybreakers, but they might have similar goals to the Ghostbloods in any case.

And what would they have actually accomplished by killing Amaram?  One less person in authority who wanted to bring back the Heralds, Knights Radiants, and Desolations?  That might have been worth it.

I'm assuming the unanswered ones are either RAFOs or the answer would be too long and involved to answer casually.  I don't have a whole lot to ask at this point, since I feel like any good questions that I have these days are just RAFO bait themselves. (Mostly Hoid and Adonalsium stuff at this point, but I guess I could throw the Taravangian thing in there.)
 

EDIT ONE: 600 replies, eh. This is going to take a while. I'm giving answers here and there, when I can, but have to go teach my class soon. So expect most of the answers to happen this evening. Do note that I'm going to give priority to those who asked a single question, or may only answer one of your questions if you left a list. Thanks!

It turns out some of us are literally asking too many questions.

@Kurkistan

I guess it just felt that way.

To be fair, I did almost the same thing with "Kaladin killed Helaran". Maybe I should necro that thread with a "Booyah!" or "In yo' face!"?

I guess next on my agenda would be "Taravangian's boon", even if I didn't make a thread for that one.

On the actual topic of Weiry's Royal Locks question, I think I've made some comment that I thought a really confident/foolish person could trim their hair/nails with a Shardblade.  Shaving would probably be a bad idea.

Wouldn't the very fact that they're on Roshar make Odium's splinters behave more like spren than Returned?  Returned themselves are basically normal people with Endowment's Splinters attached/fused to them.  I got the impression that its partially the shard/partially the planet that determines how Investiture gets expressed.  Which is kinda why BS refers to Nightblood as a Shardblade.

That said, I got the impression Odium didn't like to do things like Splinter himself, could he have been forced to do that?

Weiry's question also got some Royal Locks answers, and the reminder that we won't see too many answers about the Royal Locks until Warbreaker's sequel.  Makes me wonder if Vasher and Vivi's child would be a Returned with Royal Locks.  (Like, sigh... Denth )

The author I respected more than any person who wasn't family. 

I'd give a quote, but there are far too many to choose from, each perfect for different aspects of his life and work.

His books have shaped the way I think about myself, the rest of the world, and even the very act of thinking. 

RIP

Does anyone have a timeline (even an approximation) that goes back further? I think the idea that Eilemelie put forward is intriguing. That there's an event 1000 days from the date of the prophecy (271st day of 1173) that is important (maybe something that makes the Everstorm inevitable?).

 

Could it be Kaladin's arrival at the camp? Or something going on with Dalinar? Seems like an interesting possibility...

That is literally the topic of the bottom half of my post, just above yours, between your post from yesterday and this quoted post.

Kaladin arrives in the warcamps either in the middle or near the end of the 7th month, and WoK covers the 70-100 days to the battle of the Tower.  1173-6-5-1 could possibly relate to when the Parshendi scholars first got access to stormform and stormform spren, but it's pure speculation, since we don't have any viewpoints from near that date, or anyone who mentions precisely how long ago a particular event during a point in which we have a known date.

I made two timelines, one that's open to editing by anyone: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QI4vq9IWpTodHXan2SOWmygzU1QVRw3c5uShUOoKMBI/edit?pli=1#gid=1

Not too sure why someone changed the date for WoK chapters 59, 62, and 63 in that one though.  There's definitely a line in ch 64 before the battle for the Tower where Kaladin thinks that they've had 10 days to practice with the Parshendi carapace armor.  And seeing as the additional suits of armor were only made in 63...

Ten days, with six bridge runs, had allowed Kaladin and his team to perfect their method. Five men to be decoys with five more in the front holding shields and using only one arm to support the bridge. Their numbers were augmented by the wounded they’d saved from other crews, now strong enough to help carry.

Anyways, the timeline before the end of WoK is a bit shaky, I've got another post for that here.(Same one as in my signature.)  But the main thing to remember is that the vast majority of WoK takes place in a two month stretch beginning either around the middle or near the end of the 7th month of 1173 with Kaladin's arrival in the warcamps.

So yeah, the 1000 days epigraph has bothered me for a while now, because 1173-6-5-1 takes place between the most recent flashbacks and the start of the actual series.

Except that Hoid was a person before the Shattering.  Liar of Partinel might not be canon, but he almost certainly still started out as relatively normal Yolen human.

Q:  Is Hoid human?
A:  Hoid was human a long time ago. Now... it's complicated. We would call him human, and so will pretty much everyone else, but he is not exactly that.

Adonalsium developing sentience on its own is a worthy topic in its own right, and Roshtarfarian2.0's thread that I linked to earlier was about that, and Adonalsium being a created being as well.  (I give his thread additional weight, since it got 22 upvotes but only 10 or so people replied to it, which means that a number of people liked what they read, but for some reason didn't comment. Possible reason? He got too close to the truth, and they'd be breaking the rules by replying.)

Our main questions of note:

Did Adonalsium exist from the very beginning, or was it created? (I'm fine with either, but more partial to the "created", it's probably the humanist in me.)

Was it sentient? (WoG: Any large enough collection of Investiture will eventually develop sentience.)

Did anyone ever hold the whole of Adonalsium? (I'm favoring Hoid, if there ever was an individual. If he's a Sliver of the Whole, it might explain some of his abilities.)

Was it Shattered intentionally? (Almost certainly. We have both a plot to destroy it, which failed. And a weapon created by its opposition.)  If so, by whom? (I'm partial to Hoid again, the current Shards, and Frost.)

Q: Is Hoid a Herald, or a Shardholder, or something else entirely?

A: Hoid is something else entirely.

Brandon's been pretty clear that Hoid isn't a Shard.  Less clear about whether Hoid is a Sliver or not.  Even if Hoid is a Sliver, there's more to him than just that.  His level of immortality seems to be the highest tier of anyone we've seen in the series, since BS has said Hoid could heal from beheading or being cut with a Shardblade. (Including being beheaded with a Shardblade? That's less clear, but Hoid would probably be fine.)  If Liar of Partinel was originally hundreds of years before Dragonsteel, he's had at least some form of immortality even before the Shattering.

I'm honestly a bit surprised that Hoid's level of Cosmere awareness is far below Khriss's and on par with Nazh's though.  I would think that since Hoid had been around since the Shattering and he is constantly travelling between the worlds that he would be the expert.  That's even without considering his possible involvement in the Shattering itself.  That might be a sign that he operates more by gut instinct than careful planning.  He has a goal, but hasn't carefully mapped out the steps to achieve it, instead he tries to make the most out of lucky opportunities.

@Lightning

More or less the same phrasing BS uses to describe Dragonsteel whenever it comes up in Q&As, and why he doesn't want it easily available online.

The "inaccurate spoiler board" isn't something I've heard before, but it makes sense, and I like it when someone can distill a major point into a few well chosen words.

The fact that you can get a copy of White Sand by emailing him (or Peter?) but that has the same restriction as Dragonsteel (no discussing in an open forum or being made publically available online), makes me think that it is similar in nature, so I'll probably just hold out until the White Sand Graphic Novels come around.

In relation to my last post:

I finally found who it was on these forums that implied that violence is straight up impossible for Hoid to commit, it was someone who read the unpublished stuff, and he also asked some pointed questions about how Hoid's immortality works, which is why I thought the two things might be connected.  Again, given the innaccurate spoiler board nature of the unpublished stuff, this all might have changed.

Hmm, I'd read those epigraphs as the Skybreakers being very good at starting debates/arguments, much to the annoyance of all the other Orders.  But you could read it as them being good at separating the guilty from the innocent.  The term used ("for making such") works a bit better for the first intrepretation, it would work better for yours if it was along the lines of "for making such a determination", but even without you can stretch it to work.

I was talking about myself there.  It looks like at least three years, since Alloy of Law. 

Not sure if I considered it before Alloy of Law and finding out how much a double Twinborn could cheat the system simply by having access to two complementary magic systems.  Hoid with access to any number of magic systems and raw shardstuff like beads of Lerasium and Atium?  There's no telling what he's capable of.  That said, some people have implied that it's literally impossible for Hoid to commit violence, almost as if it's the other side of the coin to his immortality, which sounds interesting.

There's also the fact that I don't recall bonding plate like Cheese is saying being possible. "Normal" plate is permanently physical and despite the gems they connect to them lack the properties even dead shardblades possess. The fact the visions showed Dalinar Radiants that can just dismiss their helm is outright supposed to be strange to him, as the things are huge, weigh a ton, and need a whole team of people to manually put on. They don't even scream.

Regardless of the stormlight source there is no such "bond" that makes them drain any more slowly. They might not even be alive.

Yeah, there's definitely no modern day bonding of Plate.  I'm just talking about the Plate we see in Dalinar's visions, which can be dismissed at will and glows with the color of the Radiant's order.

I hadn't looked at that drainage of Stormlight in Kaladin's duel as the typical sort you see when a broken/separated piece of Plate tries to repair itself, but I suppose it could have been.  I'm still going to hold to my first interpretation though, that it was draining from his body directly, and that he unconsciously used the spheres on him, rather than the helm draining the spheres on him and he just ran out at a normal rate.

Q:  If Endowment were killed, would the Returned still come?

A:  Somebody needs to hold the magic. If no one holds the magic, the magic will start to gain sentience. Interesting and bizarre things happen then, so I would say yes, but with the caveat that with whoever picks up the power or what happens with the power could end up changing that.

 

i just noticed this quote, it gives some support for my theory about adonalsium, especially the way brandon says "interesting and bizzarre things happen then" as if it has already happened

 

Q:  Did Adonalsium deliberately shatter itself?

A:  Hmmm, good question! RAFO!

 

this is also relevant

Reminds me of this theory thread about Adonalsium being a manmade God: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6597-theory-man-made-adonalsium/

I've been speculating that Hoid might be intending to reform Adonalsium for the last few (several?) years.  After a while I started thinking that if he does manage it, he's going to destroy again, but this time, he's going to do it right, no Shards, just diffuse it through all of the Cosmere.  It would make a lot of sense if Hoid was the one wielding it the first time when it Shattered, or if he managed to set events in motion so that it would be Shattered as soon as he let it go.

Well, where do you think shardplate came from? It must come from one of the higher levels of Radiant, once they speak more of the vows.

 

If not.... Welp. Drunk me has no idea.

I'm in the camp that says it requires lesser spren of a type similar to the Nahel spren used in the Radiant's bond.  So for Kaladin, it would be made up of a lot of normal windspren (Syl refers to them as cousins).  Probably wrong, since we don't have a whole lot to go on at this point, just the windspren's unusual interest in him when he's Surgebinding.  I don't even know what the lesser form for something like a Cryptic would be.

I took it to mean that he would not gain Blade or Plate through the bond. There are a few ideas floating around as to where the original Radiants' Plate comes from, including the thought that it is gained by progressing further in the Ideals than any of the characters we currently see becoming Radiants. If this is the case, it is likely that the Stormfather is saying that Dalinar won't get Plate at whatever 'level' another Radiant would.

 

Interestingly, though, it doesn't appear that wearing 'ordinary' Plate has any negative effect on a Radiant/proto-Radiant the way holding a deadspren Blade does - Kaladin wears a fragment of Adolin's Plate without problems, and Renarin seems okay with Plate, it's just the Blade that screams in his head. The only potential downside to a Radiant wearing Plate is what Szeth tells us - that it interferes with Surgebinding (and Surgebinding interferes with it). I'd be curious to see how this is different for a Radiant wearing Plate they 'earn' through the bond - Plate  more like that which we see in one of Dalinar's visions and, incidentally, the kind of Plate he's probably not going to get by being bonded to the Stormfather.

I wouldn't say "without problems", judging from Kaladin's usage of Elit's helm, an unbonded Plate will drain Stormlight from the Surgebinder at a rapid pace.  So it's not just Bindings that are effected, it's also the ability to use Stormlight for added strength and healing.  So a Surgebinder using Plate that isn't theirs is only as effective as anyone else in Plate, less so, if they're largely dependant on the boosts gained by holding Stormlight.

I was just reading the Wiki and think I found an error, but wanted to get some opinions on this before changing anything.

 

According to the Wiki, only 9 gems are used for Sphere's and the missing one is unknown. But when I read the reference chapter, it reads as follows: "To get enough light, she was forced to use spheres of all nine colors and all three sizes, so the illumination was patchy and varied"

 

At first blush, this seems to indicate only 9 types of spheres, but I don't think it does. If I have 10 pencils, I might only have 9 colors if 2 of them are the same color.

Even if we assume each gem emits a distinct color, diamonds emit pure white light which we know is not considered a color in the Cosmere (think Warbreaker), again giving us a total of 10.

Pretty much what I said in this exact thread on page 2, about 2.3 years ago.  I also think whoever edited the wiki decided to use that line from chapter 8 for that bit, so I don't quite trust the "only 9" thing.

I think it's also arguable that Diamond spheres generate white light, which could be considered to be a light of no color/all colors. 9(varied) + diamond(white)

The stranger bit that she had that many different denominations on her at that point in the story, when so few ever get mentioned in the rest of the story.

I'm surprised we haven't seen more letters of deposit or larger gems being used as currency instead.  1000 Diamond chips : 1 Emerald broam sounds like a large discrepcancy, but it really isn't when you've got 30 denominations along that spectrum, some of which are the same.

It's a web serial, like HPMOR, though I guess HPMOR falls under the fanfiction umbrella. The author's description sums up the concept pretty well:

 

It's quite the fun read, and the author is just finishing it up. The magic is very soft compared to what Sanderson writes and the story is much darker, so I'm not sure if most people who like Sanderson would like it. Wildbow writes his stories in one go, and they tend to need some editing, but for the most part they're great.

 

The author is also somewhat better-known for doing Worm, which is a rather interesting take on doing people with superpowers. The main character is a girl with the power to control bugs (which you'd think would be an awful power, but she makes it work) who wants to be a superhero. At some point it turns into epic fantasy but much more modern. Again, very dark. I find it better written than Pact, except that the first few chapters of Worm are kind of meh.

 

Would recommend both! And HPMOR obviously, except that HPMOR is extremely polarizing in that some people and love it and some people can't stand it and I suspect the latter group is much more numerous.

It's funny that this came up, since I just spent the last two weeks into reading Worm. (baader-meinhof phenomenon) I keep planning to revisit HPMOR someday, but not quite yet.  I need to catch up on other media and daily life for a little while before I decide to start Pact as well.

Also, time bubbles on a train would move with the train?  That's new, isn't it?  Or rather it's more like "a time bubble is not so much fixed to a location on the planet, but instead to what the Misting perceives as a fixed area around themself."

For some odd reason I thought this had already been confirmed, but I think I was just putting together the questions in the same manner as in the first post.

So according to the coppermind wiki, Khiss is from White Sand's Taldain, and Nazh's full name is "Nazrilof" and he's from Threnody.  I think it's safe to assume that Khriss is immortal, or at least very long lived, and Nazh likely is as well.  That said, I don't think they're part of the 17thshard, since it seems like they know enough to have directed the others to where Hoid is in Roshar if they really wanted to.

Unfortunately, it looks like White Sand is in the same situation as Dragonsteel, where the people who have read it aren't allowed to talk to us about it on an open forum.  So the people who are most familiar with Khriss can't tell us about her, but I'm wondering if they've known that she was the AAA this whole time.

The wiki seems good: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Dawnshard

I've been thinking they were something that could be used by Bondsmiths. With the whole "known to bind any creature voidish or mortal" bit and the epigraph from WoR:

"So Melishi retired to his tent, and resolved to destroy the Voidbringers upon the next day, but that night did present a different stratagem, related to the unique abilities of the Bondsmiths; and being hurried, he could make no specific account of his process; it was related to the very nature of the Herald and their divine duties, an attribute the Bondsmiths alone could address."

I think "Voidbringers" in this case refers to the Listeners, and by using the Dawnshards he was able to force them to remain in the Spren-less Parshmen form.  Probably wrong, but it's the best guess I've got at this point.  This doesn't necessary preclude the Dawnshards from being Spren either.

Ah, their hours are actually a minute or two shorter than ours as well.  1.1 years is the better conversion, 1.14 years isn't neccessary or any more accurate.

Question: Nightwatcher's curses all appear to be neurological in effect, are the boons limited in any particular manner?

Answer: Yes.

I don't know if all curses are necessary neurological in nature, and even if they were, there's certainly a magical aspect to them. That guy (Cheese Ninja) asked a leading question, but the "Yes" was probably just to "are the boons limited in any particular manner?" Is there another WoB that I'm not aware of?

Also, I'll reiterate that Brandon's "Vashar has been on Roshar for 12 years." comment is about how Vashar was in WoK Prime back in 2000/2001, and also in Words of Radiance in 2014.  Basically, he's saying that it was not a late decision to include a tie-in character from Warbreaker, but that his existence was determined before Warbreaker had even been written.  Vashar could have been on Roshar for anywhere from a few years to a few hundred years.