Malim

I hope it works out, and I wish nothing but the best for you. I am definitely not a teenager anymore, so if you will forgive an oldster, I will give you the same advice I give my teenage daughters: This. Chinkoln said it perfectly. Anybody worth your time will respect you for who you are. If they don't, they're not worthy of your crush. The teenage years are tough. We all either are in them, or went through them. It is hard to figure out the line between being "clingy" and being social. The secret is that I guarantee your crush has the same difficulty. If you are yourself, and he responds with interest, then text, and text as often as you want. If he doesn't, then take it as a sign that he's not for you. It's hard, but being true to yourself is the best way, not only for younger people, but for old fogies like me. Good luck

Shallan is secretly a brunette. This overarching lie attracted Testament, who not only felt an attraction to the untruth, but was also Shadesmar's best stylist. The truth spoken addressed the danger that the dyes and chemicals used could make Shallan's hair fall out. She broke that truth when in a fit of rage, she started wearing a wig.

Spoilered for size.

There are in fact female Inquisitors that we have seen on screen, it just wasn't very noticeable. Of course this is after TLR had gone beyond.

Any Nahel bond: Navi with benefits.

My headcanon is that it's the point where the Spiritual Realm touches the Cognitive. In Mistborn, it seems to be the point that souls are drawn towards, and in Shadesmar it draws light and shadows towards it. No real evidence for this, but it's my crackpot theory.

I have always had... a soft spot I guess, for Lin Davar. Yes, he was a despicable person who did terrible things, but in a way I feel that I understand him. To me, he is one of, if not the most, tragic character in the Cosmere. His fall started with one of the most selfless acts I can think of: his defense of his daughter. He basically walked in on his wife and her friend trying to kill Shallan. He fought against them, and was wounded. He still fought, and probably would have fought to the death if Shallan hadn't summoned Testament and ended things. When she did, what was his response? He cradled her, tried to soothe her, hid her actions, and most importantly took the blame. Not only from society as a whole, but also from Shallan's brothers. What is more, he kept her secret about being a Shardbearer safe to prevent her from being targeted again. He didn't even try to claim the Shardblade, or get Shallan to use it again when to do so would have made his own social position secure. Even at the end, he kept those secrets safe. What was his reward for doing what any good father would do? He became reviled by everyone, including his own family. He bore that to his death, and never tried to explain what really happened. The closest he came was with Helaran when he told him that "you don't know what you think you know." That broke him and let Odium in through the cracks. He became filled with hatred, and fell. And yet, even when he fell, he felt remorse and sorrow. He tells Shallan so when she met Hoid for the first time, and frankly I believe him. He knew that he had fallen, and he regretted it deeply. And yet, the one thing that he could have done to get some modicum of respectability back from others, namely betraying Shallan, he never did, or even considered. Of all the characters who deserves a redemption arc, he tops my list. He deserved it more than Roshone, more than Moash, more than even Dalinar in a way. He didn't get one, and the irony is that the person who ended that possibility was the person who he gave up everything for. As a father who likes to think that I would be as much of a defender of my daughters, this is the ultimate tragedy.

Ok. I told you in the previous thread that I would explain why I hate Moash as a person after you read RoW, so here goes. Much of this has been touched on by other posters, but at the risk of repeating, I owe you an explanation. I don't hate Moash for killing Elhokar or Teft, or Phendorana for that matter. All of them were valid military targets at the time of their demise. While I personally hate that these things happened, (Phendorana hit me especially hard for some reason, even more than Teft) I can't hate Moash on a visceral level for them. It is war. In war you may be called upon to kill or maim people you respect. (Not going to judge the larger morality of war here, but as long as war is a fact, the above is too.) I don't care about "kicking" Gavinor, as frankly I didn't read it that way, but more as moving him out of the way. I hate Moash because of his thought process. Forget Elhokar. He had relatively valid, if misguided, personal reasons for doing so. He tried to talk Kaladin into killing himself, not because he wanted to "save him," but because he didn't want someone alive who could prove him wrong. This is borne out by his actions in Urithiru. When Kaladin almost went to Odium, Moash could have killed him to save him. He didn't, instead he tried to make it happen. He killed Teft simply to prove to himself that he could do so without regret. When he did, he felt vindicated. Yes, you can say that he was under Odium's influence, but the kicker is the vision he had in Hearthstone when Renarin used Lightweaving on him to show him his "perfect" self. When confronted with this, Moash didn't show remorse, or sadness, or regret. Instead his first act was to yell out that "No, you said you would take my pain!" Compare that to Lin Davar, who was also under Odium's thumb, but in a few moments of clarity did show some remorse and sorrow. (I'm thinking of the flashback scene in WoR where he talks to Shallan about how he is sorry that things have become the way they are. The carnival scene with Hoid I think?) Yes, I know that Moash is an addict in many ways, and that this sickness does color his thoughts. But I also have a lot of personal experience with addiction (that I won't go into here) and in my experience, even the worst addicts have fleeting moments of regret and remorse. Moash doesn't. His only regret is that he still has the capability to feel, and even that is fleeting and something he thinks he has conquered by killing Teft. He says as much. Now maybe he is still in the first stages of addiction, where the whole point, at least in my experience, is to rid yourself of feeling, but it has been a year. He either is stuck in the first stage, which I doubt, or he is choosing to be who he is. It is that choice that I hate. It is that choice that I can not forgive. That is why I hate Moash on a personal level. Basically, I don't hate the addiction, if that is what it is. I don't hate the history or feelings that led to that addiction. I don't even hate the actions other than on a character or narrative driven level. I hate the choices. I hate the reasons. I hate the continued doubling down even when (magically induced or not) absolute clarity is given to Moash. I hate Moash because he could be better. He could be redeemed. I hate Moash simply because he never will be redeemed, and not because it would be impossible, but because he never will take the first step. Not because of addiction, or force, or confusion, but because even in his moments of clarity, he doesn't want to. That shows his true character, and to me that is unforgivable.

Did Melian and Thingol have any children? That would work. Sorry for the continued hijack of the topic. I second the question about a dedicated Legendarium thread.

When you're out with friends and order a Goldschlagger even though you hate it just in case you can burn the flakes...

Excellent Shardcast as always. What I love about Sanderson is that while he does include non Heteronormative characters, he doesn't hit you over the head with them. Everyone seems natural, to the point that an older reader like myself sometimes misses them and has to have them pointed out by my daughter (who is openly Bi and proud of it.) To me that is perfect. It drives home the point that while these characters are non-traditional, they are regular people. To me that is the goal of inclusion: Yes, this is not "traditional," but so what? It's just as natural as the fact that some people have red hair, and some have brown. I can only hope that this style of inclusion keeps becoming more commonplace.

There is something else I wonder. In the contract between Odium and Taravangian, it was essentially being enforced by Cultivation, even though she wasn't a party to it. How? As Rayse said, violating the contract would leave him open to an attack from her, and it is heavily implied that she would not pass up the opportunity. That seems to be moot now since Cultivation basically placed Taravangian into Odium, or at least started the events that led to that happening. She seems quite content with the current state of affairs. From Harmony's letter, it seems that no other Shard either wants to, or currently can, attack Odium. There is no enforcer. I think that if Taravangian wanted to break that agreement, he could probably do so with immunity, at least in the short term. The only question in my mind is why he would want to. It costs him nothing to keep it, and as an individual, he has no reason that I can see to break it.

Didn't we see this same thing with Dalinar? When he was practicing with his powers on his soldiers, didn't he see a connection line between himself and the foot soldier he was practicing on? This could be the link between commander and subordinate, but could it also be the link between observer and the one being observed? There is a principle in science that by observing something, you inherently change it. (Can't remember the name of the principle offhand.) We have seen something similar with observed Flame Spren in the Interludes. As pieces of a Shard, it could be that both Syl and Pattern are picking up on that Connection. Have we seen any other instances of this Connection at play in Dalinar's POV?

I honestly dont know how to reply to this given where you are in the series. At the end of OB, I was exactly where the OP is. I didn't like Moash's actions, but I did feel that they were justified in a very real sense. I felt sympathy for his actions and feelings. I felt that his logic was fairly rational, if misguided. In any sense, he was no worse than Dalinar or Szeth. Then RoW. I don't even want to say why my opinion changed, because I want @Jash to go into it clean, but please ping me when you have read it, because I would love to go in depth with you as to my reasons.

Accept that you were hurt, but don't accept that you deserved it. -Wit to Shallan (paraphrased) *edit* And I see that Realmatic Shadow beat me to it.

Not sure if this is new or not, but all three issues of the graphic novel just popped up on my Kindle Unlimited feed as free downloads if you are a member. I'm pretty sure they were just added to that service as before I'd only seen in the regular Kindle Store. Just thought I'd throw that out there for anyone who hasn't read them yet.

Honestly, I wonder if this line of thought had something to do with the Recreance. We know that there was heavy fighting at the time, and it is quite conceivable that the idea of a complete genocide had been floated by some of the more Machiavellian orders. Maybe the strike at BAM was a middle ground option, and when, or if, it didn't come off quite as planned, the genocide option gained more ground. I can see a scenario that has Honor raving about the destruction Surges can cause, coupled with a plan to use those Surges to go full on Nazi Germani being a breaking point for many of the orders. After all, it is one thing to armchair talk about killing everyone who might oppose you, regardless of the morality of such an option, and another to actually implement that plan.

I think this is an interesting theory. It would also fit in with what Syl said about Honorspren hunting other spren in the Cognitive Realm. Axies could be doing the same thing, but more of the Rosharan equivalent of a photo safari, rather than a hunt. To take this farther, it makes me wonder about the Natans. They are human, but they have blue skin. Could they also have Spren blood at some point in their past? Maybe the Siah Aimians were the Spren that became physical, and the Natans are the result of pairings between these physical Spren and humans. Do we know if their shadows point the wrong way as well?

This is a cool concept, but I think it has one big flaw. Everytime we see conjoined gemstones, they are all conjoined together. For example, the First Bridge uses a large number of conjoined gemstones in the fabrial housings to minimize stress on each individual gem. To change the conjoinment, they have to be switched off and reconjoined to a different set. We also see this in Kaladin's flight glove. He has to switch the conjoinment everytime one of the pendulums reaches the bottom. For a machine gun mechanism to work, you would need something that rapidly shifts the conjoinment to the next round of ammo. It's possible, I suppose, but have we seen anything that works automatically like that? Otherwise, it would be more of a shotgun effect, not a rapid fire.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the rules of engagement that seem to be in place between the Heavenly Ones and the Windrunners. They seem to avoid anything that gives an unfair advantage in their fights i.e: only fighting one on one, not targeting the wounded or noncombatants, etc. Since none of the Windrunners have Plate at the battle, and Nale is bound by oath to follow the rules of the Fused, maybe he feels bound not to use Shardplate until it is used against him. It's a stretch, I know, and Skybreakers are not Windrunners, but I think that might be part of why he didn't summon it.

I hope this isn't considered a necro, but I have read Flight of Dragons (it actually was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and the book was one of the first fantasy novels I read.) How it is explained there is that Dragons eat limestone which interacts with stomach acid to produce hydrogen which then helps with lift, and also is the source of their fire. Interestingly, in this system, the more fire breathing they do, the less they are able to fly. Yes there is some hand waving with the involved science, but it is a neat way to get around the wing size issue. Interestingly, in the cartoon, Dragons have more rounded body shapes to account for the hydrogen fill, especially when they are getting ready for take off.

I'm agnostic in the fullest sense of the word. The term basically comes from the Greek "gnosis" which means knowledge, prefix "a" meaning without. In its purest form it simply means that this particular knowledge is truly beyond our understanding. We are limited to a set point in space for a limited period of time. We are finite. "God" or "The Universe" or "The Multiverse" or whatever term you like, is by definition infinite, therefore there is much more beyond our capability of understanding than there is within it. To say definitely that there is or is not a God, is therefore not something we can claim to know, at least in my opinion. I choose to put my faith in observable and repeatable science. Not necessarily as a sole provider of fact, but because it is the way than we as finite beings can bring more of the unknowable into our realm of understanding. I fully accept that there are things that science can never explain, and that there are certain fields, for example, human interactions, desires, and expressions that are completely outside of science, but are just as valid. All of that said, I believe strongly that people can have faith or not in whatever spirituality they choose, as long as it is not inherently harmful to others, and I will defend them for having it. After all, I am agnostic, I am without knowledge. No one, or anyone, may be more close to truth than I.

Possibly Build? It has some of the same connotations as create, but it would be creating something new from what already is there. It also could tie into Change. It could hint at a greater division of two: Build and Change Ruin and ? (Can't think of anything offhand) Note, this level is much more meta as Change and Ruin are just as aligned. Maybe the four as pieces of a whole share a larger Intent?

I quite like it, though I hope there is more. Please continue if you feel like it.

I'm not sure that I would include Mercy in the Survive group as by some definitions it is considered merciful to end a life that is suffering. Also (minor shard spoilers)