the_archduke

Warbreaker White Sand

I was the guy that beat you at Magic. Good times.

Why was Adolin so worried that Sadeas was going to order Dalinar's arrest in Book 1? In Book 2, doesn't Dalinar tell Kaladin (regarding Amaram's treachery) that you can't arrest a shardbearer? You either have to kill them or let them free.

When Kelsier suggests to Fuzz that he stab Elend to force Vin to use the power in the Well, Fuzz looks at his knife and addresses it as "Old friend". Sentient weapons are nothing new in the Cosmere. Could Leras's knife be anything like a shardblade? He also says that he hasn't drawn the knife in millennia. When he reached to his belt to draw it, his hand shimmered and the blade appeared in his hand. Sounds like a shardblade to me. Counter-argument: When the blade is used, it doesn't wound like a shardblade Counter-counter-argument: Neither does Nightblade, and he is something like a shardblade. Perhaps these sorts of blades do different things on different worlds. Could Leras's knife be the Scadrian equivalent of a shardblade? If so, I further theorize (perhaps crazily) that the blade's name is Senna.

Just read Bands of Mourning and Secret History today... mind blown all over the place. Both lent support for a theory I have been working on. All Shards have a specific color they are associated with. Ruin is repeatedly referred to and associated with the color black. Preservation likewise in Mistborn associated with white. Wild speculation coming... If Trell=Autonomy, then Autonomy is associated with red. 1. Red spots on "trellium" 2. Red surrounding Scadrial that Harmony doesn't know what is in Wax's death dream/vision would represent Autonomy attacking 3. Miles warns that "the men of red and gold" would come and conquer the world. Autonomy would be the red half, and his possible alliance with Odium means Wilder speculation Odium is associated with gold? Other than the men of red and gold... I don't have much for this. Are there any other color/Shard associations? Counter argument... Endowment and her multi-colored tears

My answer for anyone wanting a book recommendation is to read something by Brandon Sanderson. My wife, thus far, has not listened when I suggested. So last night, I just started reading to her from The Way of Kings. We stayed up too late and picked up again this morning while she was getting ready. The prelude through chapter two took a few hours. But I think I am finally getting through to her. I do have to comment on one line from the prologue. Szeth is scanning the crowd and sees Elhokar speaking to two people. One is the Azish man with the crescent scar on his cheek. The other is the man Jasnah later overhears referring to "Ash getting worse" and Szeth having "my Lord's blade". After Szeth sees them, he immediately dismisses them as unimportant. The line made me laugh out loud, and I had to explain to my wife why it was so funny.

There are 10 High Princes in Alethkar. These men serve (theoretically) under the king. Shallan's father was one of ten lords that served under High Prince Valam in Jah Keved, which is a Vorin kingdom like Alethkar. Does every feudal relationship in a Vorin kingdom have a lord with ten subordinates? This would make a lot of sense from a religious perspective (i.e. imitating the Heralds like they like to do) Are there any other tidbits that follow this pattern? How far does pattern go through light-eyed Vorin feudal structure? Did Lin Davar have ten subordinates under him? Does Dalinar and the other Alethi Highprinces? It was said in WoR that Amaram could have changed allegiance to Dalinar from Sadeas, but that there would have to be land swaps. I think that would be to keep Sadeas' princedom up to its requisite number (10) of subordinate positions under the Highprince.

Everyone keeps talking about how young Adolin is. You have to remember that the Rosharan year is about 500 days. Thus "23 year old" Adolin is more like a 31 1/2 year old. It explains why his failure to settle down is more remarkable. Research is fun. A Rosharan year is actually only 1.1 years because it has a shorter day. Thus Adolin is more like 25.5 of our years.

I know he responds often, but to have him respond to me... I am geeking out tonight

I am freaking out right now. I commented on one of Brandon's FB posts. He responded. Brandon Sanderson 1 hr · Twitter · As a note, today's scene from Oathbringer turned out particularly well. Pretty hyped about this sequence as it's coming together. The Archduke Is Oathbringer the final title or a working title? What happened to High Prince of War? Like · Reply · 7 · 1 hr Brandon Sanderson I am liking Oathbringer more and more. Highprince of War isn't impossible, though. Unlike · Reply · 27 · 1 hr

Spoilers for Way of Kings and MIstborn: The Final Empire

I watched it. It is essentially the prologue to tEotW. The actor for Ishamael was decent. Lews Therin was terrible. It omits the scene where Lews Therin kills himself and forms Dragonmount. Not the worst thing in the world, but very low production values. The CGI for when Lews Therin kills his family is pretty lousy. That is why they probably didn't want to try doing the Dragonmount scene. I checked FXX (the channel it aired on) and there is nothing upcoming in the series.

I'm going to post this here as well as editing my original post. I reread my notes regarding the Nightwatcher: Cultivation question. My notes say "Nightwatcher: Cultivation is similar to Stormfather: Honor" I think my original post implied he said they were the same thing

My notes are jumbled so some of these questions were from the Q/A and some were over heard in line. I will start with the ones I asked. I was expecting RAFOs all around, but was pleasantly surprised My questions Cosmere Questions from others Non Cosmere stuff

I just wrote for 30 minutes and had the computer eat it right before I hit post... I will try to repost things slowly today Best thing he said was Sanderson's 0th Law "Always err on the side of what's awesome"

I asked if the woman who Hoid said was around his age was named Reya... Rafo'd

This came to me as an epiphany at 3 am this morning after I woke up from a crazy dream where Brandon Sanderson was swearing me in as a Knight Radiant after I won an international writing competition with a LARP finale. The dream was AWESOME, but don't let its strangeness distract from this theory. I went to the Phoenix signing a week ago, and Brandon read from a work where Investiture is granted through being infected with a disease. All of Brandon's works have quirky ideas like this, following what he has termed Sanderson's First Law. http://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/ So this leads us back to the question, what are the circumstances that lead to the Nahel Bond? Why do Spren choose those that they do? Fact 1: Spren are beings that primarily live in the Cognitive Realm. We don't know precisely how this interacts with the rest of the Cosmere, but we will come back to this Fact 2: We have seen 7 proto-Radiants so far: Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Renarin, Ym, Jasnah and Lift. I am not a psychologist, but several of these exhibit signs of serious mental illness. Anyone with more training or experience feel free to correct the following. Kaladin: Depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder Renarin: Epilepsy and Autism Spectrum Disorder Lift: Total guess here, but ADHD? Shallan: We don't know exactly what is going on here, but she is completely repressing a large number of memories. Is there a diagnosis for that? Ym: Little evidence here as Darkness came for him so quickly. He was living with the guilt of the murder he participated in so many years back. Dalinar: This stumps me. but we will get his flashback at some point. Maybe he is different as he sought his Spren out, not the other way around. On the other hand, he does see things that aren't really there... Jasnah: She has serious issues with men, organized religion, authority and thinks she can save the world. She may be right on all counts, but we need to know more to give a better diagnosis. Fact 3: From the back cover, "It is the nature of magic. A broken soul has cracks into which something else can be fit. Surgebindings, the powers of creation themselves; they can brace a broken soul, but hey can also widen its fissures". "The broken soul" is a person suffering from some sort of mental illness. I hypothesize that the Spren, existing in the Cognitive realm, can somehow sense this brokenness and seek to insert themselves to fix it. Thus the Nahel bond. Some Spren seem to be specifically tailored to helping the specific illness. Syl cheers Kaladin up during his depressive moods, Pattern is trying to get Shallan to stop repressing her memories, etc. Conclusion: Spren choose people to be Knights who have mental illness So, what does everyone think?

I asked this exact question at the Phoenix signing and got RAFO

I was at the Scottsdale signing last night. Brandon came out an hour early and started signing books, including mine. Here are a few questions I asked and overheard Q: Is the woman around Wit's age named Reya? A: RAFO Q: Is the Moon Scepter an object of Investiture? A: The Moon Scepter is an item that is important to Hoid, but I won't say why yet. Q: Was Szeth's resurrection done with Rosharan Investiture or that from Nalthis? A: RAFO Q: What is the effect of the Nahel Bond on human lifespan A: RAFO Q: Does Hoid have all the abilities of the planets he's visited? A: Not yet Q: Is chouta (sp?) based on food from Korea? A: (Long explanation about industrializing societies developing portable food) and no, it is Mexican/Italian, think deep fried meatballs in a soapapila (sp?) Q: Who are your biggest literary influences? A: Robert Jordan (big crowd laugh) and Victor Hugo Q: Were shardblades influenced by lightsabers? A: Yes (long aside about how everyone in the last 40 years was so influenced), but not sure how direct of an influence Q: How do you pick names? A: (Extreme paraphrase) Each group is based on realworld naming conventions, Alethi = near-palindromes + semitic, Central Dominance = French, Emperor's Soul = Ancient Zoroastrian Q: (Something about how he got his ideas for knights) A: A knight has a sword, armor and a horse. (my interpretation of the answer is that Ryshadium were closely related with the ancient knights radiant) Q: Will Kaladin ever get Wit's flute back to woo a certain red haired young lady? A: Wit is very mad about Kaladin losing the flute. If he recovers it, he wouldn't let Kaladin have it again. Q: What is the last audio book you listened to? A: Player of Games by Ian Banks (he said something funny about how Howard Tayler was shocked he had never read Banks before and so he made him do it) Q: (overheard at a distance) Is there time travel in the Cosmere? A: We haven't seen time travel into the past, but we have seen it into the future in Alloy of Law.

The fudged glyph was read as "death" but the scribe said it almost looked like "broken" In one of the death quotes wasn't Odium called "the broken one" Odium comes?

Introducing myself as instructed. Still can't figure out where the rules page is for the shardhunt #2