Mason Wheeler

9:33: "The rest of the letter was completely irrelevant after that drop." Are you sure? Everyone talks about all the shards, but... OH WOW THE FORESHADOWING! Brandon really pulled a fast one on us here, distracting everyone with shard names but then quietly, subtly doing something no Letter has ever done before: throwing in something that turns out to be incredibly relevant to the book itself! 30:48: "Preservation wouldn't want things to change, and Sazed is not capable of making many changes" Really not the same thing at all. Preservation was capable of acting, and actively worked to not only not make changes himself, but prevent other agents from accomplishing change. 36:14: "I don't know if Was is 'endgame goals' for Harmony..." Everyone always pays so much attention to Wax, but have you noticed Wayne's arc? Seems likely to me that he's the enduring one and he's going to end up becoming the first kandra created by Harmony. 44:08: "That's Whimsy. 'I'm Ambiguity!'" Kinda sounds like Autonomy to me... 1:26:00: "It's interesting, because [Harmony] says 'Mercy worries me,' then like two chapters later, he says 'the most worrying thing I discovered was the Spiritual Realm wound.' And I wonder if Mercy was wounded in some way." The other interpretation of this is that Mercy was somehow the one who *caused* the Spiritual wound... 1:37:34: "It has been too long, in her estimation, since your last visit." [Insert "wow someone actually likes him" joke here.]

I posted a comment on a recent Shardcast that the only time I've really seen Brandon's LDS theology really strongly showing through in his work was in The Hero of Ages, particularly the ending, which I don't think anyone of any other belief system would have been capable of creating. Then along came Rhythm of War, with Taravangian's Ascension to be the new Odium, and his decision: with this much power, I can save everybody. And when I read that, suddenly it hit me: he just very specifically turned Taravangian into Satan! In LDS theology, the way that Lucifer rebelled against God and became the Devil was by trying to establish his own version of God's plan, in which he would be an all-powerful "benevolent dictator" leading all of mankind to salvation, at the cost of their free will. Well, now we have Taravangian wielding "infinite" power, and deciding to use it to save everybody... that's uncannily familiar. And a bit chilling.

I meant part 5 within this book. Also... wow! In that same signing, two questions above the one I linked, another question of mine that turned out to be way more relevant than I ever expected it would be in this book! I'm drawing so many gloryspren this evening!

I asked Brandon this question two years ago, and he RAFO'd it. Well, I read Book 5, and I found out!

Raysium confirmed as the dagger's identity. Soul trapping confirmed as the dagger's mode of operation. This adds a ton of weight to the Hemalurgy theory!

Did we just get the name of Cultivation's Vessel?

Being Rosharan, wouldn't they call it a chicken-bar?

Is that a WOB? Where did you get that?

But isn't that specifically the problem that Cloudflare is supposed to mitigate?

Likewise unable to get in. The entire site seems to be down.

The Table of Contents has a listing of all the artwork. It identifies the first two as Pailiah and Kelek, and the last two as Nale and Chanaranach.

4 more hours until the BYU bookstore opens...

You really should sometime. Not only is he a great author, he's a really great guy in general and getting to go to one of these and talk with him is one of the high points of any year for me.

If it's anything like previous releases, it's being released much earlier in the day than that, probably as soon as midnight rolls around in America; the evening is just when the official launch party will occur. Since I live nearby, I'm planning on picking it up from the BYU bookstore as soon as they open.

Technically you didn't double-post the same post twice, but having multiple posts in a row like that (some people call that flooding instead of double-posting) is frowned upon around here.

I feel like there should be anticipationspren fluttering around me everywhere.

50:25: "Other aspects of [Brandon's] religion have also shown up in his writing and in the Cosmere specifically." Far less so than other prominent LDS authors such as Orson Scott Card or David Farland, but one thing does really stand out: I don't think it's possible for anyone but a Mormon to create the ending we got for The Hero of Ages.

@robardin And all this time, we thought Taln was just metaphorically not playing with a full deck...

Shallash recently told our protagonists that she has no useful information she can give them... It's worth noting that "don't trust X" doesn't mean the same thing as "X is a lie." It means that you can't be confident that it is either true or false. Even so, this is interesting...

Yeah, this is my personal Kaladin theory. Brandon has said that Hoid has had many love throughout over the ages. It's quite possible that he's got descendants running around on the various Shardworlds, and he ends up interacting with them from time to time. And far too much of the stuff he says in his Wit persona on Roshar has some deeper meaning. So when he says to Kaladin that he has some wit in him... I take that literally. I asked Brandon about this but he RAFO'd it.

The books are here! As usual, there's a bunch of beautiful artwork inside. Some of it we've already seen (the original WoK cover and maps, for example) and other stuff is new, like depictions of Navani burning her prayer of vengeance or Syl fighting off the Deathspren. The first book contains parts 1 and 2, plus their interludes, while the third covers the rest of the book and the Ars Arcanum. My bookshelf is now officially too full; I don't have room to add these books beside the other leatherbounds. I need to rearrange it!

Assuming he knows. This is a bit of a wild theory, but consider the following: "Something extra" went into Nightblood Vasher killed Shashara so that no more Awakened swords could be made... but somehow Azure (Vivenna) has one, which bears some similarities to Nightblood but is far less powerful. (Likely because it lacks the something extra.) Nightblood ended up on Roshar, in the hands of someone dedicated to fighting Odium "If Rayse becomes an issue, he will be dealt with." From the first letter in Oathbringer. Per WOB this was written by Edgli/Endowment. Theory: Edgli is playing a long game here. She stuck a Dawnshard into Nightblood, then arranged for it to end up in the hands of someone who would take this god-killing weapon to Roshar just in time for a god desperately in need of killing to emerge.

On the one hand, it kinds of feels like "we just discovered what Dawnshards are and now the fans are going crazy and seeing Dawnshards everywhere!" But on the other hand, this would actually fit WRT couple WOBs: Nightblood is the most powerfully invested object in the Cosmere except for the Shards themselves. Given what we now know of the Dawnshards, this can only mean one of three things. 1) That's not correct and he wasn't thinking of the Dawnshards when he said it. 2) Being non-corporeal, the Dawnshards technically don't count as "invested objects." 3) Nightblood is more strongly invested than a Dawnshard, likely due to containing one within itself. "Something extra" unexpectedly went into Nightblood's creation, which Brandon has been very coy about elaborating upon, that makes its nature different from other Awakened swords such as Azure's. Nightblood's power is enough to make Vessels nervous. Given this, I think you might be onto something here. Maybe.

Ooooh, nice! I wasn't aware of that one. Thanks for posting it!

I dunno. Dragons are generally depicted as reptiles, not crustaceans, and they're famous for what they breathe out, not what they breathe in.