Cheese Ninja

Why do you think the Shin choose year lengths? It's always been stated that years are 500 days long. The Weeping happens at the same time every year, seemingly from the end of Ishi to the beginning of Jes. It's a period of 2-4? weeks with a lot of light rain and one big highstorm in the middle. On Jeseses, I suppose?

Can't believe that I forgot that. Not entirely sure what I was thinking there. The Day of Recreance does seem pretty likely.

Maybe they started number the years after the so-called "Last Desolation"? Not counting the outlying scenes (prologues, flashbacks etc.) I'd say that only 2 or so months pass during the course of the book. Dalinar only goes through 4 visions that we actually see (there were more that we didn't see, but not between the ones we do see), which happen every Highstorm, which happen roughly once a week (5 days, 10 weeks to a month). There is a date given for the map Navani drew of the Tower battle, which is "circa 1173". The dates of the epigraphs cover a period a little over two years. (1138 days total, from the 271st day of 1171 to the 409th day of 1173, there are 500 days to a year) I don't think we know an exact date for when anything happens, but we could pretend that the one epigraph out of chronological order is happening on the same day as the events it describes. That would make it more or less the last day of the book from Kaladin's and Dalinar's perspectives.

I'd like to think that Sigzil is the character Brandon mentioned as "having the potential to learn Lightweaving". Whether that would also lead to the ability to World Hop, I'm not too sure. Mainly though, I don't think Hoid would have taken Sigzil in as an apprentice if he didn't see some considerable potential in him. I'd feel a little bit let down if that potential is limited to greater appreciation for stories and cultures as a Worldsinger. A bit Off Topic: There's actually a number of questions relating to various Bridge 4 member's backstories. Moash, Teft, Rock, and Sigzil all appear to have backstories that will demand expansion. Judging from what Brandon has done and said so far, these won't be tangential, but rather they will mostly be tie-ins to the main story. I think Sigzil's personal abilities, at least at this point, are limited, otherwise Hoid wouldn't have felt the need to tell Kaladin to watch over him. We'll have to see how he develops in later books.

Thanks for correcting me there, I knew that he had to reshuffle the timelines at some point, but I couldn't remember how, and all I could find were the older interviews. So, I think that Stormlight in its entirety will happen before AoL and its sequels then. We were told that Hoid used Shadesmar to jump Scadrial in WoA, but haven't learned how much work goes into jumping between worlds. What do you guys think? So far I've gotten the impression that Hoid doesn't like to leave a world until he's completed his business there at the very least. He'd accomplished most or all of his Mistborn goals by the end of Well of Ascension, and just seemed to stick around for no particular reason in HoA.

I had thought it pretty likely from the beginning that Honorblades were a subset of Shardblades. I never even thought about how the Veden and Alethi treat heterochromia... I know that some people were heavily invested on the whole Feruchemical rate of storage thing, but I'm a bit glad that it's not an actual thing, that made the whole thing more complicated than I think it needed to be.

I think Hoid was still on Roshar. I get the impression that trips between worlds are not to be taken too lightly. Also, Brandon stated AoL is several hundred years before the events of Way of Kings. I quoted and linked to that in the post directly above yours...

Fair enough, but if a Shardblade isn't even claimed by someone, then it could just be lying around anywhere. Only after a Shardblade is bonded to someone could it be sent away to the Spiritual Realm. Also, when and where did we get confirmation that they're stored in the Spirtual Realm? Where is the Brandonothology most up to date?

I think that Plate and Blades haven't actually changed since their initial creation. I don't think that each order has a particular type of Plate, but that Plate is interchangeable until it is attuned to a particular Surgebinder. But I think that Radiants had to develop their Nahel Bond to the at least the 3rd Ideal before they could use Plate. Once they had advanced in their training to a far enough degree, I think they picked out their own Plate and Blade from a storage in Urithiru. Then they probably added whatever glyphs were needed so that the Shardplate wouldn't interfere with their various forms of Surgebinding. ex)Windrunners needed glyphs that still allowed them to use Lashings. The glyphs probably lasted as long the Plate was bound to a particular Radiant, until death or abdication. Basically I think that the Nahel Bond affected the state of the Plate and Blade as they were wielded by the Knight Radiant. What I'm not sure about is if there were Plates and Blades before the Knights Radiants were created by Nohadon. I think we're told that they were granted by the Heralds, but was that before the first Desolations happened, or only after the formation of the Radiant Orders? Dalinar's vision with Nohadon didn't actually feature Blade or Plate in it. There were dead Thunderclasts, but the destruction wasn't described very much.

It's definitely Hoid's PoV, we're privy to his thoughts and opinions after all. He knows that the guards think of him as a "crazy man" and the other things are his educated guesses as a long-lived being that's seen a whole lot of humanity in its varied states and forms. Hoid also mentions that he knows why the Darkeyes defer to Lighteyes, and that it's a pretty good reason, but he doesn't bother to tell the reader what it is. It doesn't matter how much a PoV character knows if the author doesn't want to reveal something quite yet. Pratchett's Discworld books are actually a mix of 3rd person limited and 3rd person omniscient. He'll often talk about the consequences of a character's actions in much greater detail than the PoV character could ever know. There's still plenty of room for mystery in the storyline.

1. It doesn't seem unreasonable to consider Honorblades a specialized subset of Shardblades, even considering the wording of the Prelude. 2. It's alright not to show everything a PoV character knows, regardless of whether it is 1st person or 3rd person limited (as in the SA). Even in 3rd person omniscient, it's not like everything is revealed from the beginning.

sourceI think I read elsewhere that Warbreaker happened before Alloy of Law. But I can't remember where. All I can remember is that he decided for Cosmere reasons that one had to happen before the other. Maybe it's a Hoid thing. Also, Roshar days are 20 hours long, and their hours are a few minutes shorter than ours. It works out to: 365*24*1.1/500/20*60=57.816 Earth minutes per Roshar hour. But that's only if 1.1 Roshar Year = 1 Earth Year is exact. And to clarify the original question: Aona and Skai are dead well before the events of Elantris, but I'm not sure if we know just how long before. If Seons and Skaze are their post-death Splinters, then it was so long ago that people don't remember when it actually happened.

1.If he had summoned it, then set it aside, and then she killed him with it, I think she could still consider "fruit of her sin". Same for if it had belonged to someone else, her father killed him/her, and then she killed her father with it.2. The first, killing blow with a Shardblade wouldn't draw blood, but once they're dead, any subsequent blows will cut them in half, which would have to be bloody. Also, there could have been someone that was killed by normal means (her Memory from "Burned into Her"), likely by her father, while her father was killed by her Shardblade. I like the whole 2nd person theory because it allows her Shardblade to have an origin outside of their family, which might explain why they couldn't sell the Shardblade without getting into even more trouble themselves. The topic of selling the Shardblade is never even brought up, so we don't know if her brothers know about it. (I assume they must, if the killing blow was a Shardblade, it's too distinctive, and the Soulcaster being sheared is difficult to hide.)

Observer: Yeah, that was pretty obvious, less obvious is that it's the only death quote epigraph out of chronological order. [7-2-2] The next chapter's was [7-2-1] Hokie: That's not when the Parshendi stopped fighting and yelled "Neshua Kadal", it was before that, when he used the Reverse Lashing on his shield to pull ALL the arrows they shot towards Bridge 4 into the shield. Then the Parshendi archers ran away. They also say "Neshua Kadal" and begin to chant a song Kaladin had never heard before when sneak attacks the Parshendi Shardbearer and collects Dalinar. (Saves probably isn't the right word, since it didn't look like the Parshendi were going to kill him at that point.) I'm sure that Szeth's orders to assassinate Gavilar came from the Parshendi. I don't see how he could have been tricked into it by someone other than the Parshendi when they are holding his Oathstone and he is specifically ordered to wear white, since it was their custom. It's interesting that they have a custom relating to assassination, someone in another thread argued that they must have become Parshendi only shortly before meeting Dalinar, but since they have their own fully developed culture, I think their change must have happened quite some time earlier. I still think it was a Herald that changed and ultimately leads them, and at this point I believe that the assassination was ordered by a Herald. Possibly the drunk gibberish-speaking man at the Beggar's Feast, and probably in consultation with Shalash, who was there in the Kholinar castle shortly before the events of the Prologue as well. (Shalash's statue was missing, and we know she loves to destroy depictions of herself.) It could be that the Herald took notice of the Death Quotes when they first began, and started pressuring the Parshendi into meeting with the Alethi and setting off a controlled war before they became completely uncontrollable due the coming Desolation.

I don't think TLR Compounded Investiture. As to why... maybe Nicrosil was too difficult to produce? I feel like he should have known about all the metals since he was a Sliver, but maybe he didn't. I'm not too sure. As for mass-Soothing and Rioting, maybe he was Compounding Duralumin and/or Aluminum (Connection and Identity, respectively) at the same time he was Soothing or Rioting. Wax showed that Pushes became a lot more effective when he tapped a whole bunch of weight at once.

Also, even though we've gotten most people (maybe not Voldy?) to agree that the Soulcaster was broken with a Shardblade, there's still division on whether it was the killing blow (my preference) or after death Shardblade materialization. Either seems likely to me. Sorry I never got back to Voldy on listing all the usages of 'shear' in Way of Kings, page numbers are epub edition, it's a bit of a PITA, and then I forgot about it: pg. 30, 35, 216, 220, 222, 317, 397, 398 (through souls, instead of a physical thing), 469, 521 (where it's used to described the Soulcaster), 695, 696, 805, 806, 806 again, 923 (metaphorically, through ranks of Parshendi), and 955 Every instance except on page 521 is explicitly used for a Shardblade's actions. 16/17 times, if you count the Soulcaster, 17/17 100%. 'Shear' is never used in any of Kaladin's surgical scenes, which would be another likely place for it show up, but it doesn't. Also, zas meant "Asmodean-like death" not "Adonalsium-like death" in his last post, and while I agree with my theory that Kaladin killed Helaran (obviously), I actually believe that particular comment refers to Gaz. More detail here.

I disagree, judging from that goodreads quote, where he seems to associate the Gaz question with Asmodean, he is probably talking about Gaz in the Stormblessed interview as well. I'd say most of the major deaths in Way of Kings had some element of mystery to them: Gavilar, Taln(in the prelude), Gaz (if dead), Shallan's father and brother both. Only major death that didn't was Tien. The biggest reason I like "Kaladin killed Helaran" is that it ties together characters in a way that they wouldn't be otherwise. If it was some random Veden guy, there's no major repercussions. Instead of Shallan arriving on the Shattered Plains as simply Jasnah's apprentice, she's "the sister of the man who tried to kill me" to Amaram and "the sister of the man I killed that started this whole mess" to Kaladin. (Even if neither she nor Kaladin know that.) So she's not an unrelated entity to either of them. Amaram may not be as important as a PoV characters, but he is important, both for his past as Kaladin's commander, and in the present as a follower of Restares philosophy and vassal of Sadeas and a Shardbearer (ill-gotten though they may be).

Dragonsteel and Liar of Partinel (the scrapped Hoid origin story) are both set on Yolen. I'm pretty sure Liar was going to be a thousand years before Dragonsteel as well. It's been a while since I read the Liar sample chapters, but what really stood out to me was that the world and humanity already seemed pretty far along in their decline. And since we've been told Dragonsteel has dragons, I wonder if and how they would have been worked in Liar as well. Just looked for myself, and Liar really did have a lot of references to dead gods. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/35772519/The-Liar-of-Partinel

Shalash evidence: 1. Szeth notices that her statue was missing in the prologue. Presumably she had just destroyed it and it had been removed before being replaced. 2. Baxil's Interlude has only Shalash used as the Herald Faces at the chapter title. 3. She is of no race known to Baxil. 4. She talks about getting a Shardblade like it wouldn't be a big deal. 5. And she's destroying artwork of the Kadasix Epan, Lady of Dreams. If it wasn't clear, she's destroying depictions of herself. Kadasix=Herald I wonder if she's just bored or feels guilty about being worshiped after she and other Heralds abandoned Taln.Niter is Jezrien evidence: 1. They both have short black beards. I'm not of the opinion that Niter is a Herald. He could be, but I don't remember seeing anything that suggests that. Both having short trimmed beards is a weak link. Baxil's mistress has four or five pieces of evidence that lead to her being Shalash. As far as Shalash goes, I just think that the established rules for eye color don't apply to the Heralds. I think that Taln started with dark eyes, and Shalash started with very light eyes, and that these don't change even if they pick up a normal Radiant's Blade. But I admit I could be wrong about that. Anyways, whether Herald's eyes change color is less significant than whether the Radiant's Blades and the fall of the Hierocracy caused the currently established Lighteye society to come into being. Which despite being a theory that I've held for less than a fortnight, I've still become rather fond of it. Back on topic: Szeth says that Shardplate would interfere with his lashings. A true, fully trained Windrunner Radiant probably had a special relationship to their own Shardplate that allowed them to circumvent Lashing interferences. It was less a suit of armor and more an extension of their self. I think that all the Orders of Radiants could use their full Surgebinding abilities while wearing the Plate. I think that the Plate's gems were there both to power the Plate and to serve as a source of emergency Stormlight for the Surgebinder.

I think a Herald could probably wield a typical Shardblade without their eyes changing color, since their previous connection to their Honorblade takes precedence. Prelude Epilogue From the context, I would think they're both Honorblades, but Taln's isn't described as anything like the others. Even though they're "beyond even Shardblades", I still think you could count them as a subset of Shardblades, since they seem pretty similar in function.

Just to be clear, there's no loss if the rate they are tapping does not exceed the rate that they stored at, is there? So, let's say they stored an attribute at 40% for an hour, leaving themself 60% to function with. If they later tapped at any rate between 1-40%, there's no loss, whether it's 20% for 2 hours or 40% for 1 hour, but if they tapped at +40%, there would be. I actually never paid attention to the Q&A bit where that was established before. An interesting side effect would be that the most efficent Filling is the one done at the greatest rate, and the least useful storing is the one done at the lowest rate. Since none of the Feruchemists we've seen have thought about which bit of stored attribute they're using, Feruchemy is probably set up so that they always use the lowest rate storage first (the least useful bit). This makes Compounding even more efficient than I realized, since they're the only ones who would ever be able to store at rates above 100%, and when they later need to tap that attribute at extremely high rates, they're generating the least amount of loss.

I don't think modern day Shardplate and Shardblades are different from the ones the Radiants used, for the most part. I think it's just a side effect of their users being untrained in them, and not being Surgebinders. If a Radiant died, it probably ended up in an armory in Urithiru until another Radiant advanced to the point in their training where they could use them. I'm pretty sure there were steps involved in a Radiant acquiring their Plate and Blades that tied it to them in Spiritual manner. Maybe they could send their Plate away in the same manner that they do their helmets and Blades? Also, I don't think they can be created or permanently destroyed without using something a few magnitude higher in Investment to do the damage. I do think there are well over 1200 sets of Blades and Plates, most of which have been hidden either by organizations (Thaidakar's Ghostbloods, Restares's), Heralds, Parshendi (presumably backed by a Herald), or maybe even the Shin. I think there's actually a Herald who has devoted himself to collecting Shards and Plate, and that he'll die, and a whole bunch of Blades are going to materialize in an Unlimited Blade Works sytle. Not entirely sure about the Plate in that situation. As you can see by all the "I think"s, this is unfounded, but a lot it sounds good.

I know that a lot in book knowledge is incorrect, but I think Sazed in particular is much better informed than most characters in the series. He was a respected figure in the Shin community before he became Truthless. Probably was privy to many of Shinovar's and the Stone Shaman's secrets. I think he knows what he's talking about when he says that the eye color change is a more or less unique effect of his Blade. I'm sure he's still not as well informed on the whole history of Roshar as someone like Jasnah might be, but I think on this particular topic there's few we've encountered who know better than him (just the Heralds and Hoid). Here's my rough estimate ranking how knowledgeable some of the characters we've seen in WoK are on Roshar's past: Hoid->Heralds->Taln->Taravangian->Jasnah->Sazed->Navani->Shallan->Dalinar->Kaladin. Also chapter 71, "Recorded in Blood": “ Describing Szeth's Blade as a "monstrosity of a Shardblade", when it's half the size of a typical Shardblade is unusual. Either the Shin consider all Shardblades monstrosities, or there's something special about his. I'll just state this explicitly: Szeth's Shardblade is different from all the other Shardblades we saw in Way of Kings. The bigger question is: "What was the original purpose of Szeth's Blade?" And given the answer Brandon gave about some Blades "most certainly" having side-effects on the wielder if used in a non-prescribed manner, and Szeth talking about how he's being haunted by the voices and cries of those he's killed, I'd guess he's got one from that some category.

Here's the quote from the "Glory of Ignorance" interlude: Also, since Sapphire is the gemstone associated with Windrunners, that's why I associate his abilities with the Shardblade itself. In addition, in the WoK Prime sample chapter, Jekson had neither Blade nor Windrunning. Which is a bit tenuous given that it's an earlier draft, but still notable. Too bad we can't add polls to existing threads, I'd like to see what other people think of Brandon's "we've seen three types of Shardblades" response.

Compounding healing is extremely effective, but it messes with your own natural healing process. I wouldn't be surprised Compounding memories is detrimental to normal memory making. Let's use this analogy a bit more. If someone was given two spikes, one to allow them to burn Gold, another to allow them to store Health in Gold. They could, while they had those spikes, do some health Compounding and massive healing. Once they lost those spikes, they'd no longer have any benefit from them, regardless of how much Health they may have had Compounded, even if they stored it in Goldminds, because they wouldn't be able to use those Goldminds anymore. Someone would only be able to Compound as long as they were Spiked, so there's no way they'd be able to retain their gains from Compounding forever, only as long as they can store the attribute and tap it again later. And are you sure it's just human quality attributes that cause mental damage? I couldn't find any such limitation on the wiki, and it's been a while since I read Mistborn, so I'm not sure what was in the book. I do know that Koloss and Inquistors took the mental damage and were most prone to Ruin's control because of the sheer number of spikes.