askthepaperclip

I was actually impressed with how Amaram didn't technically lie! He just didn't give all the details.“Yes,” the newcomer said, pulling back and holding his hand to the side. “Taken from an assassin who dared try to kill me on the field of battle.” He never said who killed the shardbearer. Seems like he is actually trying to avoid outright lying. Maybe give the guy some credit? I suspect he isn't actually the uber villain that everyone thinks. Edit: ahhh ninja'd! Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so :-)

Only on 17thShard will a theory that a random piece of fruit is poisoned be considered "simple." lol

Yes, it all makes sense now...Highstorms are all in your head! That must be how Kaladin survived being strung up: "I think I can, I think I can...." EDIT: Did anyone else try to scroll down on that Chapter layout twitter picture? LOL

I agree with RainbowRose. Also, I doubt that 1088 pages is the biggest press that TOR has access to, but rather that 1088 pages is the capacity of the press that they booked for WoR. My company is printing our catalog right now (only 296 pages, can't even imagine proofing 1088!!!), and I learned that the selection of the type of press and scheduling the time on the press is a whole thing. So, it probably could have been bigger (hey, King's IT was bigger!) but it would have been a big logistical pain to switch presses.

Totally agree about the latch. Big red flag for me. (Stolen from another of my posts) "I should speak to Captain Tozbek; it won't latch properly." SABOTAGE?!?! There is NO WAY that a Captain would allow his own (or any!) door not to latch properly on his ship, especially when we now know that they must sometimes weather Highstorms at sea. Again, NO WAY they would not be fully able to "baton down the hatches" so to speak. Something is definitely fishy! EDIT: Oh snap, Yalb is the spy and is going to betray her, just like Kasbal did. If he kills Jasnah, I think that might break Shallan Unfortunately, that would fit in nicely with the blurb from the back cover about cracks and broken minds, etc. She already has a Shardblade...is Shallan going to be the one to say "LET'S BURN THIS MUTHA DOWN!!!" ????

I was just thinking about this...it looks like the membership has surged recently and with it seems to have come a marked acceleration in rep giving/receiving. I'm not complaining, and personally am glad to see the rep flow increase a bit (everyone likes the warm fuzzies they give, right?), but I was curious how the admins would handle it. Looking forward to seeing what you came up with!

OK, here are a few thoughts. I tried to remove any that have already been expressed. (Storm y'all and your fast postings!) Chapter 6: - I don't know what you guys are talking about...Pattern? Terrible name! It sounds like a 4 year old child who just named their new cat "kitty!" Lame. Hopefully this is just a placeholder until she gets to know him better. - "You...make it...into you." It appears that Pattern (ugh) equates eating as the destruction of the food's spren (or the food's Shadesmar glass bead?). Interesting. Alternatively, he might see it as a type of Soulcasting Rape ; IE, changing the form of something without the consent of its spren, or without the usual quid-pro-quo of traditional Soulcasting (give a truth, get a transformation). Very interesting. (PS, I hope no one is offended by my use of the word rape here; given his reaction, I think it is the best word to describe what she is doing.) - So, the crew can see Pattern. I wonder, is he choosing to be seen by them, or is it automatic? Also, I wonder if they can hear him as well, or if that is only Shallan? Given the way she describes his voice as vibrations that she can feel as much as hear, I suspect that only she can hear him. - "Mmmmm....Lies." Am I the only one who read like like Homer Simpson saying "Mmmmm...donuuuts...." - "I should speak to Captain Tozbek; it won't latch properly." SABOTAGE?!?! There is NO WAY that a Captain would allow his own (or any!) door not to latch properly on his ship, especially when we now know that they must sometimes weather Highstorms at sea. Again, NO WAY they would not be fully able to "baton down the hatches" so to speak. Something is definitely fishy! - Jasnah knows about the oaths?? Has she spoken them? (despite her claims not to be a Radiant) Chapter 8: - Interesting about loaning Shardblades. My question is, what is the difference between loaning a Shardblade and giving one? Intent? Not that he would, but could Dalinar take his blade back from Sadeas at will? I think this is a very subtle Realmatics question, and the answer could prove very enlightening.... - While it would be a nice twist, I don't understand why everyone thinks the letter is from Amaram. How would Amaram solve Dalinar's problems? My immediate thought was that is was from Wit! Dalinar mentioned in the earlier chapter that his task of getting the Shardbearers to dual Adolin would be more difficult without Wit around. And by this point, he might be ready to return to the action with a Herald in tow...now THAT would be cool! My other thought was that the letter was from Jasnah, but then I remembered she has a spanreed, so probably would need to send a letter. Chapter 9: - I'm pretty sure this is the first time we have seen non-selfish Glory Spren. Is it significant? Not sure... - "It's more like an agreement among friends." Very interesting! Is she referring to the other spren? As in, "hey guys, we all know we can do whatever we want with these surges, but lets set some guidelines so the humans don't lose their This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules." That would certainly explain a lot about the nature of spren. - I'm pretty convinced the Stormfather is Honor. No good evidence, but it feels right, based on Syl's comment. I don't think she would be beholden to Jezrien like she would to Honor. Maybe his forbidding of the spren from bonding humans was a punishment for the recreance/betrayal of the spren? On the other hand, if the Stormfather were Jezrien, and he was the one who forbid the bonding, then that would explain Darkness and his quest, if he were acting to enforce Jezriens standing orders. - "A shrine? Oooooh!" Did this remind anyone else of Temeraire and his pavillion fetish?? LOL - EDIT: OH MAN, Shen is totally a Parshendi spy! How did we not see this?!?! Was his getting the Bridge 4 tattoo a sign of him pulling the triple cross??

Lol, I did find that puddle intriguing as well, but for a different reason... I might be wrong here, but I think this is our first view of an Amethyst gem! (enter Kurkistan with a quote to prove me wrong... ) I, too, thought something weird was going on, until I thought of the gem thing shortly before it was revealed in text. Oh well! And yeah, nice catch about the moon!

Jasnah says "we would probably name them lie spren." That fits perfectly with saying Syl is an honor spren, but we would probably name her a wind spren. I take this to mean that in general, many/most spren are not what we think. (Poor Axies!) Much like the KR were a construct built around the existing surge binding framework, Or push/pull/internal/external for allomancy was a construct by men to describe the existing system, I think our descriptions of spren are just that...OURS, not theirs. That doesn't make it wrong, it is just their name in our system, not their system.

Believe it or not, this quote is on page 2, and I just read through all 12 pages to make sure no one else had already pointed this out... I don't think the act of drawing the pattern will have an ill effect on her spren. In fact, I think it would have had an ill effect had she NOT drawn it! Shallan has told us that when she takes a memory, it stays perfectly in her mind until she draws it, at which point it is released. I think her taking a memory did indeed "freeze" the spren, in the same way the ardent's measurements did, since it appears her memories are perfect representations (this is how she could know that her drawing wasn't quite right). By drawing the pattern, albeit imperfectly, she released the memory, and thus released her spren from its frozen state, hence the "sigh of relief" at the moment the drawing was finished.

Come on guys, Jasnah calls them lie spren and you are still arguing for truthspren? Lol Lie spren makes so much sense. Note that they seem to be attracted to elhokar as well, who was at least lying about the assassination attempt, but I suspect more (recall that he had an intense looking meeting with darkness at one point...plus he is just generally shady)

I think the message is a countdown to the parshendi transformation into whatever form they are scared of (void?). Who wrote it? I think it was a parshendi who volunteered to take on slave form in order to infiltrate the camp and deliver the message. Given the Alethi treatment of parshmen, it would be totally reasonable for them to ignore a parshman. "Nobody went in there!" "What about that parshman?" "As I said, nobody!"

Wait, joking right? I had assumed "division" meant nuclear fission...

Do we actually know that the letter was written by Hoid to a dragon, or are we just assuming? I had never seen confirmation on this...

I have also been intrigued by the term "old magic" since I first read it. To Shardlet's point, if what you say is true (and I think it is), we are still missing a "new" magic in the minds of the people. Maybe fabrial science? Although I think that is treated much more like science than "magic" (hence the name, I suppose...)

I have always read the "my Lord" statement as coming from a lackey, referring to darkness. We have already seen in the lift interlude that he had lots of lackeys, why would this guy not be one? With the new WoB about the honor blade, I am pretty convinced that darkness/nalan is the one who went back for his blade, and that "my Lord's own blade" is referring to his. I don't think Brandon would tell us such a big detail this close to the book release unless it was already heavily hinted, and the fact is, darkness has appeared in at least THREE of the readings up to now. Occams razor would suggest that the Herald he is referring to must be Darkness. As for who "that creature" is, it is still up for grabs to me. Although since I just invoked occams razor, I will say that it is probably szeth.

Considering that one of the responsibilities of the radients was to remember the desolations and to train and prepare the rest of the world when the time came, I highly doubt that written records were surviving across desolations before the radients were around. Otherwise, why would that be one of their duties?

Regarding the number of desolations the radients experienced: I think it is more than one. In the starfall vision, they talk about seeing signs that a desolation is near, which implies that they have been through enough of them to know the signs. As far as why the radients ditched after that particular desolation, I always assumed they were jumping on the opportunity to abandon as few of their fellow heralds as possible, without them all abandoning and thus breaking the oath pact. Poor Taln just drew the short straw, so to speak.

Aether, I think it is safe to say that we are very far from knowing what is possible at this point in the series. Also, the appearance of things seem to be flipped in shadesmar, so what we saw as dun there could easily be glowing in the physical realm. Going back and rereading the OP, I love this (the OP) theory. The idea of parshendi becoming void-ish by bonding with corrupted or Odium spren (either forcefully or by mistake) is very compelling to me. It just feels right, and fits well with the parshendi seeming very scared/desperate. My guess is that those who took the slave form, did so to prevent themselves from accidentally bonding with corrupted spren again. (If you have no freedom to choose, you can't choose poorly, amirite?)

Ok, thanks, figured I would ask!

Peter, do you know if there is going to be a "buy the hard cover, get the ebook free/cheap" promotion for WoR? I definitely want the hardcover for the art and for signings, but people tend to get mad when you bring luggage on the bus ;-)

Hahaha "Revenge of the Chasmfiends"?? I can see it now..."Ok, let's see how YOU like it having your limbs killed one by one with a shardblade!"

Heh, the first question I ever asked Brandon was during the Towers of Midnight release tour several years ago, "Before he was killed, did Gavilar experience the same visions as Dalinar, and are they what drove him to try to 'unite' his kingdom with the Parshendi?" Brandons answer: "*sly grin* Iiiiiinteresting theory! Read and find out!" Yeah, I think it is clear from the epigraphs/Mr. T that the Almighty's visions are being seen by many people, but most don't have the means to do anything about them.

Um...did you guys miss what Peter said? I am very impressed that no one has begged for the new cover yet ;-) (unless it is already available somewhere, in which case TELL ME WHERE!!) Lol

OK, I need to spend more time perusing the forums OTHER than the Steelhunt one. I just found the updated synopsis on my own and was all HOOOOLLLYYYYY and came to post it, then found this thread....lol My guess is that the writer of the synopses is one of the less crazy Heralds. Maybe Nalan? He seems to be keeping tabs on everyone, and the dark tone seems to fit him well, assuming he is who we think he is. Only thing is, it sounds like this guy wants the Radiants to return, which I don't think Nalan does... Does this sound like Cultivation to anyone else? Also, y'all are sooo sure of yourselves...I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the Lightweaver is Rysn!