Arondell

I'm on the fence about how powerful Adhesion, AKA Atmospheric Pressure, is.  It depends on how absolute the control over the pressure could be.  Part of the problem right now is that no one in-world seems to be thinking of it in terms of pressure but strictly in terms of adhesion.  I can imagine several ways being able to manipulate the pressure in a specific area could really mess someones day up.

I think its a pretty good chance of this being Tarah.  Though I am a bit puzzled that if it is then why she is using this haphazard way of looking for him.  If it just hasn't occurred to her that the fairly well know Captain Kaladin is the same as the Kaladin she had a relationship with it would indicate Kaladin's name is fairly common.  A bit like John or David. 

Alternatively its possible that she would be worried that Kaladin might be there and she doesn't want to find him because she is there for some other reason entirely.  After all the relationship ended years before.  She stopped writing after Kaladin never replied to her letters.

Based on a number of comments both by Jasnah and from the recorded crystals Urithiru was completely abandoned before the Recreance.  The exact reasoning for this is not entirely clear other then it maybe having to do with the siblings apparent withdraw and the failure of many of Urithiru's support systems when that withdraw happened.

"Something is happening to the Sibling. I agree this is true, but the division among the Knights Radiant is not to blame. Our perceived worthiness is a separate issue. —From drawer 1-1, third zircon"

"The wilting of plants and the general cooling of the air is disagreeable, yes, but some of the tower’s functions remain in place. The increased pressure, for example, persists. —From drawer 1-1, second zircon"

"I wish to submit my formal protest at the idea of abandoning the tower. This is an extreme step, taken brashly. —From drawer 2-22, smokestone"

"The Edgedancers are too busy relocating the tower’s servants and farmers to send a representative to record their thoughts in these gemstones. I’ll do it for them, then. They are the ones who will be most displaced by this decision. The Radiants will be taken in by nations, but what of all these people now without homes? —From drawer 4-17, second topaz"

"Good night, dear Urithiru. Good night, sweet Sibling. Good night, Radiants. —From drawer 29-29, ruby"

"The creature trembled, and Shallan finally saw the reason for its fear. It had been trapped. The event had happened recently in the spren’s reckoning, though Shallan had the impression that in fact centuries upon centuries had passed."

The point being that the Radiants themselves didn't really understand why the towers functions were failing. And the problem started before it was abandoned.

So.  Functions in the tower start failing.  Possibly because of the withdraw of the Sibling.  Radiants decide to abandon Urithiru and do so completely.  Sometime between that abandonment and the arrival of our heroes Re-Shephir shows up and decided to make her home in the heart of Urithiru.  With the possibility that she was already there in an imprisoned state and just managed to escape the prison.  At least that is my guess as to the probable timeline of those events.

I'm more in the camp that the issues with Urithiru was more likely due to something happening with the Sibling.  As for the Midnight Mother. I doubt that an entire city filled with hundreds of experienced Radiants could not do what one single inexperienced lightweaver managed in driving off the Midnight Mother.   Recall that Shallan perceived that the Midnight Mother had been imprisoned and had only recently, by its reckoning, managed to escape.

I have wondered if the Bondsmiths might have had different areas of expertise or responsibility for the reasons you state.  I doubt their fundamental abilities would have been different though.

The Stormfather made it pretty clear when discussing Jezrien that the heralds and their abilities were distinct from the orders. "He was before Windrunners.  He was Jezrien, a man who's powers bore no name.  They were simply him. The Windrunners were named only after Ishar had founded the orders."

8 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I've seen that WoB and it's always bothered me.  Have we seen any other examples of young characters being extra super good at something because they'll be extra super good at that thing in the future?  Or is Kaladin the only one?  

Mistborn Spoiler

Has Mr. Sanderson ever been asked if there is anything the radiants as a whole would not be willing to do?

I do think an interesting plot twist at this point would be if a living spren came along and started the bonding process.

4 hours ago, CrazyRioter said:

I think simply forming a nahel bond with her should be what is required to restore her,, no extra investiture required.

It's plausible that she'll have some lingering "scars" from the whole thing, but I don't think it'll change her basic nature.

 

Based on the various WoB about the difficulty of reviving dead radiant spren I had the impression that they needed to be fixed *before* a nahel bond can form.  Reviving a dead spren should be more then just like bonding a regular one but more so.  On the meta level I would personally prefer if Adolin didn't become a radiant.  I like the idea of a well liked character that isn't a radiant or has special powers that is important to the story.  He doesn't need to be radiant to be awesome.

I always had the impression based on various comments by Mr. Sanderson that part of the reason for the difficulty was the sheer level of trauma done to the spren when the bonds were broken.  So if the bond was actually a cybernetic plug when the bond was broken it is as if the knight ripped the plug out of the sprens head.  Taking with it the components that enabled a radiant bond in the first place along with  a big chunk of the sprens mind.  All that needs to be fixed before a radiant bond can even start to form.  So yeah. Really hard.

That is my take on it at least.

11 hours ago, Angsos said:

Since Gavinor now survived, is Jasnah still Queen or did she get demoted to regent?

Gavinor had already been recovered when they made the decision to make Jasnah queen.  He is mentioned when Dalinar initially broaches the subject with Adolin.  It was not spelled out but I would guess that as of the end of Oathbringer Gavinor is considered Jasnah's heir.

I was kind of wondering what was done to Jezrien might be related to Hemalurgy.  Since that art specifically involves ripping pieces of peoples spirit web out and attaching them to other people via sharp metal objects.  Except I thought that Hemalurgy required intent and I'm not sure Moash knew exactly what he was doing there.

On 1/30/2018 at 1:21 AM, BasementDwellingRadiant said:

4) The line in one of the letters about Rays bearing the burden of "god's own hate without the other verities that gave it context" also keeps playing over in my mind.

Not sure if it is a typo or perhaps you misremembered but that quote is a bit inaccurate.

Quote

He bears the weight of God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context. He is what we made him to be, old friend. And that is what he, unfortunately, wished to become.

Sanderson, Brandon. Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive, The) (p. 840). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition.

I don't feel that Honor and Cultivation are as polar opposites as Ruin/Preservation.  That combo is actually making it hard for Harmony to function at all.   It certainly doesn't mean they were incapable of working together long term, unlike Ruin and Preservation.  The two holders of the shards being romantically involved probably helped in this regard.

1 hour ago, Naerin said:

 What does it actually take to kill a Radiant? Decapitation?

I dimly recall Peter making a comment a long time ago that a crushing blow to the head would do it.  Also things like a shard blade through the brain and/or spine would be sufficient.

3 hours ago, Slothspren said:

that's not how vacuum works (scientifically speaking). If kaladin is using vacuum to generate adhesion then theoretically this surge will not work in space. A per ars arcanum he sticks things by creating vacuum between adjoining surfaces and the atmospheric pressure around the object does all the work by pushing it towards the low pressure area. the highier the surrounding pressure is the more it will exert pressure on the low pressure area. the surrounding storm will rush towards that low pressure area with an enormous force and crush anything in-between. not to mention the absence of air in that vacuum would suffocate anyone caught in the low pressure zone due to lack of air.

 

Having recalled an old chart of the surges that actually called the surge Atmospheric Pressure rather then Adhesion I just assumed that what Kaladin was doing was increasing the pressure about himself and creating a counter force to the storm.  At least if I work with the idea that the surge is about the manipulation of Atmospheric Pressure rather then Adhesion as such it seemed to make sense to me.  Including the ability to anticipate coming high storms since measurement of atmospheric pressure is actually used in real life storm prediction.

Oh and actually space is not a total vacuum.  There is quite a lot of gas in space.  At least one well known space craft concept relies on it. (e.g. Bussard Ramjet)

17 minutes ago, Slothspren said:

I read the chapters when they came out but while doing reread of WoR, suddenly switching to kaladin's fast paced chapter from WoR was not a good idea and the chapter kinda lost all its energy for me.

Anyway looks like that look of betrayal on the listeners will probably have some negative consequences later.

Also Kaladin noted that the flying VBs were low and bobing. That reminded me of how coinshots fly, while kaladin flies similar to lurchers so maybe their powers are similar but work on opposite forces, they were probably pushing against earth periodically hence the bobing action, or maybe not. But its theorized that odium probably has his own 10 surges in AA.

I also believe that his stormwall was a new thing since syl had never been surprised by his abilities before but this time it was new to her and she had no idea what happened. 

We know that kaladin is special in SA and according to BS he will probably have a second book so its possible for him to manifest new abilities unknown to KRs before. Heck he might even become a herald if he takes back that honorblade.

Finally, I believe that the Unmade were once Listeners, according to Rlain they hate humans and gave up themselves to odium, presumably after humans invaded roshar and took away their home. 

Kaladin notes the bobbing motion is much like what he did when he was first learning his powers so I'm inclined to think it is simply a sign of inexperience.  Also Syl has in the past been unaware of what Kaladin could do until he did something.  e.g. Healing a shardblade severed arm.   For that matter pretty much everything Kaladin can do with the surges he had to figure out on his own without direct instruction from Syl.  Other then vague comments implying he should be able to do more.

I was under the impression that Mr. Sanderson had initially considered giving Kaladin a second book but decided against it and is going with the every order getting its own book idea.  Its possible I might have missed that particular WoB though.

1 minute ago, Musica said:

This is the first time I hear about it!! For real? Do you have a link to the quote? Does it mean she actually had a crush on Jasnah? Is she even aware/acknowledge her bi-sexuality?

The link is a couple posts down from that.  From what I read she did not have a crush.  Any more then a guy admiring the physical characteristics of an attractive woman would have a crush.

1 hour ago, Arondell said:

Interesting.  Its like he didn't plan it that way but when a fan pointed it out he, sort of, decided to run with it.

I thought there was a WoB about this.  It was speculated about long back.  I personally doubt it.

34 minutes ago, StormingTexan said:

Why yes we do. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/35-arcanum-unbounded-hoboken-signing/#e4826

Interesting.  Its like he didn't plan it that way but when a fan pointed it out he, sort of, decided to run with it.

13 hours ago, Nymeros said:

Oh snap was the surge of Adhesion just useful?

The "Adhesion" surge utilizes principals of Atmospheric Pressure to achieve its effects.  As I recall early references to this surge called it just that.  Not sure why they decided to change it.  Because of that I've kind of been expecting to see Kaladin do something involving direct wind manipulation for some time.

2 hours ago, maxal said:

The reason some readers dislike the idea of "Highprince Adolin" is some of us feel it is terribly restrictive. It forces Adolin's character to deal with politics, scheming and bureaucracy when his character would be more interesting if swung in other directions. Also, we all know Adolin will be a good Highprince: there is no growth to be had for his character in having him move up to this position. So while it perhaps makes sense for Dalinar to make the move, it is terrible for Adolin's character development. To make a long story short: it is unbelievably boring. So yeah, I do hope something will happen because if Brandon wanted to steer Adolin's character into a boring static story arc where he fades into the background, then this is it.

I kind of had the impression that Adolin was a supporting character.  Mr. Sanderson has used him as a kind of catalyst to push the main characters to deal with new situations.  A bit like Elhokar, also supporting, has just created a new situation for Dalinar to deal with.   As such it isn't all that bad a thing as a supporting character if Adolin took up ruling the princedom since it would free up Dalinar, a main character, to deal with the bigger issues.   On the meta level I don't really think he is there to generate his own great story arc but to make the primary characters story arc more interesting.  Not that he can't have a great story arc it just doesn't seem, to me, like it is the purpose of the character.

6 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

Good point. But it could just be related to loyalty, that he doesn't know the men below enough to trust them immediately. Of course with Alethkar, its probably a related to social rank. Also makes it interesting how bridge 4 are obviously in their own little category now that they are squires . Dalinar addressed them differently than I suspect he would have just the previous week, and no-one even questioned their presence there.

I think it might also be related to training/experience.  Doing the jobs they seem to be doing requires a fair amount of both those factors.  For instance I don't think Kaladin could do the job well simply because he has no experience with coordinating the actions of an entire army.  Though he would probably learn quickly.  Combine that with some of the social rank issues and the pool of people that can be put in that position is pretty small.  Dalinar probably can find others to do it but they just are not with the army.

On 8/23/2017 at 8:17 PM, TheOneKEA said:

I believe there are also WoBs and WoPs which state that the Rosharan system has a certain degree of artifice to it, and that Roshar has been altered in some unspecified way by the Shards.

The excerpt of the letter at the beginning of chapter sixty six in WoR specifically states "The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium."  Also while my ability to find it is lacking I seem to dimly recall there was a word of Brandon saying that the ability of spren to manifest on Roshare was Adonalsiums doing.

Well duh.  You use waffles not pancakes.