Mad_Scientist

That has to do with regulations that the dubbing studios have no control over, unfortunately. There's not much they'll be able to do about some of it.

Yah, for example I believe that Cartoon network refuses to allow smoking (though they broke that rule for Miyazaki movies, because they had too), so Sanji's smoking in One Piece still had to be edited out even in the Funimation version. Also, it seemed like Cartoon Network didn't want a show that had previously been TV-Y7 suddenly turned into a TV-PG show, so Funimation still had to tone the violence down a lot.

But at least the DVDs and web streaming of One Piece remained unedited.

Agreed! Plus, funimation is the company that is currently doing Naruto and Bleach (I believe) so that means that if it has adult content, they won't remove it (read: Michiru and Haruka's relationship). At least, that's what I'm hoping for.

Side note, but did you prefer the ep 1-11 Sarina better, or just hate them both equally?

Actually, Viz is doing Naruto and Bleach. Funimation is doing One Piece. That said, Funimation definitely won't edit the show, at least for dvds. If it somehow ends up broadcasted again there's a chance the tv version could have edits though (just like the tv version of One Piece continued to have some edits even after Funimation took over).

My two brother-in-laws (who are themselves brothers) were both big fans of the books. I had read and loved Tolkien, but hadn't read much other fantasy yet, and I found some of their conversations about the Wheel of Time quite interesting. I decided to borrow the first book from one of them eventually. I remember that I hesitated to do so for a while though, as the series was huge and unfinished (10 books were out when I finally started reading) and I half wondered if Robert Jordan would ever finish the series.

Looking back now, some of my comments before I started reading are both sad and ironic.

Why no option for the Black Ajah?

Hmm. In all seriousness, I have little idea. Maybe Brown? I do love reading.

I think darniil was trying to make two points. The first is that though Ruin and Preservation have not merged together, they are linked in a fashion. Let's use legos as an analogy.

Let's say we got two legos, a blue one and a red one, named Preservation and Ruin respectively. Some guy named Sazed goes over to the the legos and picks them up. He holds the blue lego in left hand and the red lego in his right hand. Thus, the legos are completely separate from each other, and the only connection they have to each other is that they are both being held by the same person. This is the way most people seem to view Sazed's current state in relation to the Shards he holds.

Not let's consider another example. Sazed goes over and picks up the blue and red legos and smashes them together somehow. Poof! Now he's just holding a single lego, and it's got a new color, purple. This is the idea that Chaos and KChan so vehemently disagree with, the idea that the Shards have merged and now have a new intent. This is also not what darniil was suggesting.

Final example. Sazed goes over to the two legos, and sticks the red one onto the blue one. They are now held together in the standard lego way and can be moved about as though they were a single piece. But they are still separate. The red lego is still red, the blue lego is still blue, they are still two different legos. But they now have a connection to each other, a connection that is more than just "they are being held by the same person" like in the first example. This, I believe, is what darnill was thinking.

Basically, his idea is that when two Shards come together, there are more than just two possibilities. It's not just "they become a single Shard" or "they remain totally separate with absolutely no connection to each other." It's possible for them to become linked together while remaining distinct, or so darnill is speculating.

The second point I got from darniil's post was that just because Ruin and Preservation remain separate Shards now (or so most of us think) doesn't mean they will remain that way always. Perhaps, if Sazed holds them long enough, they will indeed combine into one. The red and blue lego attached to each other will become a single purple lego.

As for my own views, assuming the above understanding of darniil's points is correct, I'm not sure. I do think that there is a way to merge Shards together, but I don't think it's something simple or something that will happen automatically just by Sazed holding two Shards together. I'm also not sure whether I think it's possible to merge only some of the Shards together or whether you have to merge all 16 together at once. Regardless, I don't think Ruin and Preservation will ever become a single Shard just by Sazed holding the both of them for a long period of time.

As for whether Sazed is holding two legos separately or has attached them to each other, I also am unsure. It's something to think about I suppose.

More interesting for theorizing is the fact that the map of Kharbranth has the "evil" symbols from the rear bookend at its corners. I wonder what that's implying?

Interesting. In this thread it was speculated that the doors to the Palanaeum might be the Surgebinding chart. But now I'm thinking it may actually be the "evil" symbols on the door instead, though I'm sure the colors are different than those on the book illustration.

I'm really curious what chapter 69's epigraph refers to:

“All is withdrawn for me. I stand against the one who saved my life. I protect the one who killed my promises. I raise my hand. The storm responds.”

I have an idea that it relates to either Amaran(Brightlord who betrayed Kaladin) or Sadeas. Not sure which idea I like better.

Actually, no. What happens is, you have ten Surges, and each of those Surges contributes to two orders. So you have basically something like this:

Gravity + Pressure = Windrunners

Gravity + ??? = Szeth's Order

Soulcasting + Lightning = Jasnah's Order

Soulcasting + ??? (Possibly something Memory-oriented) = Shallan's Order

Except Szeth is an oddity. as he definitely has the powers of a Windrunner and uses both gravity and pressure. But I suspect that Szeth's current abilities are abnormal in some way and were not gotten in the normal Radiant way, and that if he ever does develop as a Radiant, he will have slightly different powers than he does now.

Yeah, I remember that conversation. However I attribute it to one of those things that people believe but are not true. It seems very... provincal? It seems too simple and easy, and given the way his mother was prone to quick wittedness and joking around I'm not even sure she's 100% serious herself when she says that. Kinda like when kids ask 'why' a million times in a row, eventually you just start making stuff up. I'd be willing to bet that spren questions are very like this in a time when the population at large knows almost nothing about spren.

I sort of took that exchange to be what she believed, but not anything proven. Nothing we've seen so far shows that spren are "cut up" versions of a big spren of the same type, nor has that idea been mentioned again. We are, of course, only one book in, so I don't know, I could be completely wrong.

If Kaladin's mother's conversation stood alone, I might think the same thing. Heck, my first time reading Way of Kings I did think that way. But when I re-read it looking for cosmere clues, I noticed some things that add credence to her words. One of those things is Syl's cryptic comment about spren being basically the same individual. Syl's words can be interpreted many ways, but they do fit nicely with Hesina's words. But the biggest reason I think Hesina is right is because of Soulcasting.

When Shallan accidentally Soulcast, she turned a goblet into blood. She communicated with the goblet, or more precisely, with the spren of the goblet. Now, I suppose it's possible that Shallan is mistaken, but I got the impression that she was right, and that all Soulcasting involves spren. That would mean that everything would have to have a spren, or at the very least everything that can be Soulcast would have to have a spren.

Now, going back to the goblet that Shallan turned into blood. She talked to the spren and caused it to change. But, what if she shattered the goblet first? Presumably, she'd be able to Soulcast the pieces. But that would mean that each piece of the goblet would have a spren now.

One goblet, one spren. A dozen goblet pieces, one spren inside each of them, a dozen spren. Where does the spren of the goblet go when it breaks? Where do the spren of the pieces come from?

The best explanation, to me at least, is that Hesina is exactly right. The spren of the goblet breaks into pieces itself, and little bits of it become new spren inside each of the goblet's pieces.

One thing to note about that Brandon quote is that it seems a bit outdated. He mentions two main magic systems there, and from the descriptions it seems clear that one is Surgebinding and one is Soulcasting.

But in current Way of Kings, Soulcasting is actually a part of of Surgebinding (Brandon has confirmed this) and not a separate magic system. There are also other magic systems such as the Old Magic and Voidbinding that we don't know much about. It seems the "two main magic systems" thing is no longer entirely valid, at least as far as classification goes.

It also seems to me that when he was commenting on the magic system that manipulates "fundamental forces" he was giving general examples of the type of thing it does rather than specifically outlining its powers. All things considered, while it's possible that there may be a form of Surgebinding that can manipulate atomic forces, I wouldn't be too surprised if there isn't.

Y'know, this is something that always bothered me. We have no direct evidence that such a thing is possible. If you sever the spine, you're dead.

Personally, I'm chalking this one up to "exaggerated rumor", since we have no direct evidence that this event happened the way it's reported. Heck, it could even be intentional propaganda by the Lord Ruler to make himself seem even more impressive.

The story given in the book itself was that the Lord Ruler was completely decapitated, and Brandon revealed somewhere (either an annotation or an interview, can't remember which) that this was indeed an exageration. So was being burned all the way down to a skeleton. But... he also revealed that both things were based on real life events, one being an incident where he suffered severe burns, another where he was almost decapitated but his head remained attached to his body. Don't think Brandon mentioned anything about whether the spine was severed or not though.

I guess I should clarify. At the moment, I have no kindle or other portable ebook reader, and I have no intention of getting one any time soon, as I usually prefer reading books in paper form and can't really afford one now anyways. A Night of Blacker Darkness is only available in electronic form, but I intend to just read it on my pc.

Since I plan to read it on my pc, the main things I was wondering about are stuff like possible DRM hassles, the ease of use (or lack thereof) of whatever PC software I'd need, whether I can redownload the book if something happens to my computer, etc. The only ebooks I have read on my pc before have been in PDF format so I was already familiar with what I'd need to read them.

EDIT: And I just now discovered that Smashwords has a whole bunch of different options available, including pdf. So I'll probably go with that, and this whole thread wouldn't have been needed if I had just done a few minutes more research myself.

*Insert embarrassed emoticon, since we don't have one yet*

Three evil clones holding powerful magic! Or a server error causing a triple post. (Of people holding powerful magic). Whichever seems most likely.

Who hasn't gotten it yet?

I got it (messaged Eerongal earlier to confirm), SOM1else got it, Emeralis00 broke down and googled it, and Eerongal started it... so everyone's got it except for possibly you, as I'm not sure if you've sent a guess to Eerongal yet.

EDIT: Oops, too slow, KChan has started it now.

Welcome!

A little but about myself. I was born long ago in Roswell, New Mexico. I've spent my life near top secret government installations (I now live in Nevada). I have a background in Anthropology, which I'm hoping to use as a writer.

Nice, hehe. I'd ask if you ever saw any aliens, but I suppose if you told me you'd have to kill me.

Hope you enjoy your time here.

So, I don't have a kindle, so that's out. According to Brandon's recent blogpost, this book can also be gotten via Nook, iBooks, and Smashwords. The thing is, I've never gotten an ebook from anywhere so I have no idea which of those is the best, or if it even makes much of a difference. Any suggestions?

EDIT: To clarify, I don't have an eReader and have no intention of getting one at the moment. I would like to read this book on my pc, and am curious as to what people would recommend for that.

Ah.

Killer but not thriller.

Got it! (I think) That's the advantage of joining the game after a whole bunch of guesses I suppose. Let's test my theory.

Funny but not supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Light Yagami's cooler cousin from an alternate reality.

I took Syl's statement to mean each subset of spren were basically like the same person. You know, all deathspren are attracted to death and act in the same way given the same stimulus. The same way all deer act the same, but deer do not act the same as snakes, both animals but different KINDS of animals. Unless they start to form the bond, in which case they seem to gain sentience from the human, while the human seems to gain some of the spren's powers, both feeding off each other and growing the aspects they didn't have before as the bond grows stronger.

That's kind of what I think, though I believe the spren that are capable of bonding with humans are unique from the very start, even if they sometimes lose their minds and appear to be "normal" spren.

Regarding spren being essentially one person, Kaladin's mother Hesina had some interesting things to say. I bolded the especially relevant parts.

"Spren live in everything," Hesina replied.

"They can't live in everything, Kal said, dropping a peel into the pail at his feet. He glanced out the window, watching the road that led from the town to the citylord's mansion.

"They do," Hesina said. "Spren appear when something changes--when fear appears, or when it begins to rain. They are the heart of change, and therefore the heart of all things."

"This longroot," Kal said, holding it up skeptically.

"Has a spren."

"And if you slice it up?"

"Each bit has a spren. Only smaller."

(Kaladin's thoughts on the lack of taste of longroots omitted)

"So we eat spren," Kal said flatly.

"No," she said, "we eat the roots."

"When we have to," Tien said with a grimace.

"And the spren?" Kal asked.

"They are freed. To return to wherever it is that spren live."

"Do I have a spren?" Tien said, looking down at his chest.

"You have a soul, dear. You're a person. But the pieces of your body may very well have spren living in them. Very small ones."

I find it interesting the way she talks about spren splitting into pieces that become their own spren, and that fits right into Syl's words. Imagine you have some huge giant stone slab. That has one spren. Break off a bunch of pieces of the stone, and you also break off pieces of the spren. Now each of those rocks has their own spren, but all those spren were originally just a part of the bigger spren. If you think about it that way, perhaps at one time there was just ONE giant stonespren, and every single stonespren that exists now is just a part of that one giant spren.

So in a sense, all spren, all normal spren, are the same individual, or pieces of the same individual. Separated by type of spren, of course.

That could have happened after Honor was killed. I don't think we know precisely when that happened.

When Dalinar saw his final vision, Honor said something like "some of what I have shown you is things I witnessed directly, but this is something I fear." Not the exact words, but close. That means that Honor was still alive during the time of at least some of Dalinar's visions, and every single vision Dalinar saw took place after the Heralds had started fighting. Given Honor's comments on how he has trouble seeing the future and given how clear most of Dalinar's visions were, I'd suspect that Honor didn't even die until sometime after the Knight's Radiant abandoning mankind in the Recreance.

I don't think that the hell the Heralds experience was just a form of madness. When Kalak was talking about how he "can't go back there," Jezrien seemed to know what he was talking about.

I still don't understand the oathpact and why it was the way it was. But there are a lot of VERY strange things happening in Roshar. A part of me almost wonders if Honor and Odium were working together to fight a common foe: the "enemy" mentioned in the prelude is never named, and we've all just been assuming it was Odium. Of course, if Honor and Odium were working together, it raises the question of who the heck they were fighting. A part of me almost wonders if they were fighting a Cultivation gone mad and causing the desolations in order to stop Cultivation from destroying the world through... over-cultivation? Ok that sounds weird, but we know that pretty much any Shard intent taken to extremes can be dangerous. An issue with this theory though is that "the enemy" was referred to as a he and Cultivation was referred to as a she. And if they aren't fighting Cultivation, than who?

Honestly, I think there may be something other than a Shard on Roshar, something that is somehow so dangerous it required more than one Shard to work together to fight it. There are some oddities I have noticed.

In one of Dalinar's visions of the past, a woman uses the oath "three gods." This seems to be an obvious reference to the three Shards on Roshar. But this vision took place during the cycle of desolations. If mankind had been fighting Odium for centuries, perhaps millenia, why would a woman include Odium alongside Cultivation and Honor in an oath like that? Even if she did aknowledge Odium as a god of sorts, would she refer to him in such a casual manner that implies no difference between him and the other gods? I suppose maybe the "three gods" thing is a red hering, and was actually not referring to the Shards on Roshar.

In one of the chapter epigraphs, we learn that "3 of 16 ruled, but now the broken one reigns." The 3 of 16 is obviously talking about the three Shards on Roshar. But... the way that is phrased almost implies that they are ruled together. Also, the way that is phrased strongly implies (though does not outright state) that the "broken one" is NOT one of the 3 of 16. This seems to conflict slightly with Kaladin's vision which mentioned that Odium reigns, and creates another oddity. Maybe the broken one is referring to Odium, but why would he be called that? He's not broken in any way that we know of.

In Honor's final vision to Dalanir, he says that he should have known Odium would come for him. Ok, that means that Honor apparantly didn't expect Odium to come for him. But wait a second. If Odium is the enemy being fought by the Heralds, than that means that Honor has been fighting Odium for millenia, and then was surprised when Odium tried to kill him?! That makes no sense. Yes, Honor did say he should have known Odium would come for him, but I doubt Honor is so stupid as to not realize someone that has been battling him for years would try to kill him. I could easily see Honor not expecting Odium to betray him if they had been working together though (being blinded by his own nature as Honor).

All in all, there are just so many oddities I can't explain to my satisfaction. I'm not sure what could possibly be a threat to Shards yet not be a Shard itself, but I have a strong hunch that something like that does exist on Roshar.

For disabling emoticons, do you mean seeing them or posting them?

If you mean seeing them, there is an option that does that I believe, but it disables all images in posts, not just emoticons. If you click the little down arrow to the right of your name in the box in the upper right corner and select "My Settings," you can then select "Forums" underneath "Your Options" and choose "Board Preferences." There will be a box that states "View images in posts, such as smilies and posted images?" which by default is checked.

Testing something out.

EDIT: Yep, with that box checked, no emoticons, including your own, will show up as pictures. Your emoticons will still appear as graphical ones to others who have that checked I think, but you yourself will never see any.

Hmm. I'd say it's highly unlikely to be Steris, given her comments regarding coachmen in chapter 2. She seems like the type of person who is very blunt and honest, at least in her dealings with those close to her. I could see her easily agreeing to a marriage for political and financial reasons even if she was a lesbian, but I couldn't see her hiding the fact that she was a lesbian or making up things about dalliances with coachmen. I think that when Wayne asked her if she planned to take a mistress, she would have answered honestly. I could be wrong though, I suppose.

EDIT: Oh, and I see this is your first post, so welcome to 17th Shard!

Kelsier only looked after the shard, he never became a Holder, just a Sliver like Rashek, (afaik, he'd been instructed by Leras to wait with it for Vin/Sazed).

A Sliver is by definition someone who has held at least part of the power of a Shard and given it up. Vin and Rashek became Slivers via the Well of Acension, but Kelsier also is a Sliver, and he didn't use the Well. He may not have held the entire Shard of Preservation, but he somehow at least held part of it.

This particular Q&A may not have been added to it yet anyways, as the interview was very recent. Here's the thread for it: Linky. And here's the exact quote:

Josh: When non-god metals are burned Allomantically, what happens to the metals? Are they crushed into tiny specks? Do they disappear?

The metals become a key conduit through which the power is delivered. So they are actually sort of vaporized, and the atomic code is a key by which the power is drawn in.