Khmauv

I am currently attempting to indoctrinate my children by reading the Alcatraz series to them, so far I am unsure how it is being received but my oldest (8), who is not a reader, has been asking me to continue so...I'll keep my fingers crossed. I have been trying to get my wife into Brandon. I mistakenly tried to start with WoK. It was not a good choice but we are slowly making progess through it between other books. We did get through Rithmatist and TES, and I am pushing for Mistborn which she seems open to reading, however the local library's nine copies are all checked out(bitter sweet).

The shard of deceit. A.K.A the Shard of obfuscation, and the Shard of Marketing. A world where the only thing more powerful than a politician is the large corporation that pulls it's strings.

I really like this thought. I am not sure why but it rings true.

(O.o) ...plain old meteors?

That is exactly what I am getting at. Odium shows, up shatters dominion and devotion and the result...magic rocks from heaven. Thanks Unknown God!

When I read TES I just assumed that the Unknown God was Odium. He is foreign to Sel and his appearance coincides with magic rocks (that I also assume are some manifestation of a shattered shard) falling from the sky. To me this has Odium written all over it.

Not to my knowledge

When watching Star Wars makes you wonder if Breeze is a world hopper. "These are not the droids you are looking for."

As christian themes go I think there could be a parallel between shard plate and the Armor of god as found in Ephesians. First thing that struck me was the "sword of the Spirit". Then I thought of spiritual armor and weapons designed to protect/fight against a spiritual enemy. That is totally shard plate and shard blades.

I do not actually think that Brandon would dream up something so mundain. I was just musing over the thought of hundreds of geeks and engineers finally realizing their dreams of gaining superhuman abilities and then having an impromtu battle royale.

To address the question,"Why didn't anyone discovered what calamity was in the year before the Epics?": Maybe everyone that looked at it closer became an epic and then stopped caring. I can see it... "NASA destroyed itself as a large number of epics suddenly saturated its facilities and began a bloody war for power leaving few survivors"... and no one to care what calamity was anymore.

Okay. I think that I'll actually chime in on topic this time. I really liked the Hrathen arc in Elantris for several reasons. First of all, I have been through a similar crisis of faith where I had to really stop and evaluate what I actually believed, even why I believed. I suppose I resonated with him a little even though he was a major antagonist. Second, I found that while I detested the manner in which Wyrn was directing the Derethi I could see merit in the belief system itself. If nothing else I respected Hrathen for his belief even if I couldn't believe the same. Last, I love that it showed that each religion had a broad range of devotion within each religion, some devout, others apathetic, and still others who were zealous beyond regular practice. Demonstrating, to me, the importance of not lumping groups together and categorizing them solely by the beliefs and actions of a few extremists.

I am throwing out a wild theory here. I don't know if anyone has made it yet, and I won't give any evidence, but here goes. -Wayne is part Kandra. This is why he is so good at mimicking accents and disguising himself.

I know this isn't entirely on topic but I am really enjoying this thread. Mostly because of the diversity of belief that is represented (though admittedly highly biased toward mormonism) and the civility of the discussion. I wish there were a place where all beliefs were discussed is such a civil way. I would love to learn what people believe from there own lips (or fingers as the case may be) unbiased by the rage and hatred that inevitably arises when diverse ideas collide.

This reminds me of a stamp sinking into a forged object.edit: possibly a direct manipulation of the spiritual aspect of the object.

I always thought that the stone Galivar had when he died was a Dawnshard

Precisely! So I think that Kaladin is going to learn from Syl how to teach his Ex-Bridgemen how to attract spren and bond them.

I think I am going to take this thread in a different direction. The OP assumes that you have to have a spren "interested" in you to become a KR. My understanding was that Syl was interested in Kaladin because of his honorable actions. Wouldn't it be easier to train people to be honorable, which in-turn would invite spren to bond with, than it would be to search everywhere hoping to find someone who just happens to be attracting a spren?

+1 to help you on your way to Adonalsium

I also thought this would be the case, but I don't think that Gavilar knew, or believed, that those words were the Ideals of the KR. If he knew wouldn't he have spoken them? If he had spoken them, wouldn't he have powers of the KR? If he WAS a KR what were his powers, and why haven't we recognized them yet? I like to think that Brandon is leading us to believe that Gavilar was searching for (but hadn't yet found) the Ideals of the KR, but he (Brandon) has something even more awesome in mind. Though I have no idea what that is. Maybe the Ideals of the Heralds?!? *queue dramatic music* duh, duh ,DUH!

...I know this is the case for and English version, but Thought is reading it in Latin. So if the book is in Latin are the spells in English?

But then all value to the post would be completely lost. I agree with Kurk that my theory is incorrect. That has been well demonstrated, but that doesn't leave the ideas without merit. If I say that magic can do anything I have reduced what merit that remains to nothing. Not to mention I would be violating Brandon's own laws.

I really like the idea of one thing affecting the other in a unidirectional way but Well...WoB soundly killed that theory. Though I still think there is something salvageable in here somewhere. I will continue to refine my thoughts on this. Thanks for your input.

Harrius Potter? What language are the spells in?

Awaken a container to "contain things"