Truthless

And four for FAMILY .

I'm inclined to say this is coincidence. The Heralds have Roshar-ian names. It would be very odd for them to have meaning in a real language.

It's been several years since I took Latin, but I do remember being taught that all "c"s are hard. Hence, foh-kai. And I would agree that observing Latin plurals in English is hardly mandatory, although it does sound better.

Ya'll have excellent taste I read "Pillars of the Earth" a few years ago, and it's really quite incredible. It almost defies criticism, it's just such a massively ambitious work. It's not my favorite book by any means, but very memorable. At the moment, I'm actually reading "Knife of Dreams". This is in fact my first read-through of The Wheel of Time. I am taking my time in the extreme, since I know once I finish "Towers of Midnight" the waiting will be exquisitely painful.

In Mistborn, it seems like the technology is developing away from magic, whereas in Stormlight Archives the "technology" is a gradual rediscovery of ancient magic. The distinction between technology and magic isn't very important anyway.

I will be playing Portal 2 as soon as I cash a certain birthday check. For the moment, I'm wading my way through Mass Effect, which is just fabulous. My computer can barely run it, but it's amazing. At some point I might even buy ME2. And maybe beat it before ME3 comes out - woah!

Oh, there it is. Thank goodness for people that know the text. I was going in quite the wrong direction. That's SO INTERESTING though, since the Highstorms seem to have something to do with Honor, and the Origin is in the far, far east. I don't have a clue what it means. But it's really interesting xD. I honestly hadn't associated the Shin with Honor before, but it seems obvious now. And we still don't know where Cultivation is - if she's anywhere. I guess that's a possibility. Shards wouldn't have to be centered anywhere, would they? Although I would think Cultivation would gravitate away from the presence of Odium.

Well, Cultivation is centered in the West, isn't she? It makes sense for Cultivation to be focused there - I can't cite text evidence, although I'm inclined to say there's a mention of it in a chapter-header. Also possible: War happened mostly in the East because of Honor's presence as a focus for the resistance to Odium. Since Cultivation would not be directly fighting with Odium, there was never war in the west. It's kind of a push/pull thing, which I think has been hinted at: where the resistance Odium was strongest, he was strongest.

I feel like there isn't much chance of this referring to the Shards of Adonalsium. First, there is only possibly one SoA on Roshar which is not held by anyone. Which would make the statement "Return to men the Shard they once bore." Which is not the case. Soooo, Dawnshards. Or some kind of restored form of the Shardblades. Note - I guess we don't know for sure if Cultivation is held by someone, either. It could be on auto-pilot. But I really know next-to nothing about that particular Shard. And I feel like Shards dying/being killed is a huge deal, and if Odium had done her in, it would be mentioned by now. It's possible that the quote means that all of the Shards of Adonie need to find new bearers for things to work out. But it just seems contrived. With the Dawnshards being lost, and the Dawnshards being very powerful and important, it makes perfect sense.

I lean more towards this theory. Whatever is happening at the Origin, it's obviously releasing a huge amount of force (not to mention a chunk of a Shard's power). I don't think it's a stretch to imagine whatever sets off a Highstorm could tilt the planet a bit. Personally, I'm imagining Honor's corpse periodically exploding. But we know a dead body doesn't retain a Shard's power. Ah well.

How do we know all of that about Hoid? Is it just info that Brandon has given out to us? Anyway, very interesting. Also notable - the three Nexi (Nexuses?) mentioned on the map are of Transition, Imagination and Truth. All of which appear to be things spren are attracted to. Coincidence? Possibly. At this point we know too little about spren and Shadesmar itself to make a firm connection. It could be coincidental - it could be that the spren and Shadesmar have some sort of guiding principle in common, but are not themselves related. On the topic of Stormlight, my thoughts are a bit disjointed. I'm going to keep mulling them over, for now.

Hey guys, Truthless here. There have been two things on my mind lately - First, Shadesmar. I was about 1/4 of the way through the book, first time through, when I idly marked my place and flipped to the back cover. And then I was all WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN? Then it was mentioned. Twice. What we know for sure: Shadesmar is intertwined with Roshar. Soulcasters enter into Shadesmar in order to change matter from one thing into another. What most intrigues me is that this is not a change of state (liquid to gas) but of element. Soulcasters are changing matter at the atomic level. To do this, an 'exchange' of sorts has to be made - first, with the maze-headed beings (Cognition-spren, hm?) - and then with the object itself. Shadesmar is also, apparently, the exact inverse of Roshar. It has a giant sea of marbley-things where Roshar has land, and land where Roshar has ocean. Each marbley-thing, it can be safely presumed, represents an object on the surface of Roshar. One bead for a vase, one bead for a stone, etc. This presents problems as to determining when something gets its own bead (consider making a sandwich, or knitting), but it's all I've got. These beads are subject to the will of a Soulcaster, and will form objects for them in order to navigate. It is also apparent that you don't enter Shadesmar physically, as Jasnah was herself Soulcasting, with everyone watching, as she turned a rock into smoke. So what IS Shadesmar? How does it figure into the bigger picture? And what about that scientist and mathematician with the adorable relationship? Here's a quote I just looked up for ya'll: "I wonder if they eat in the Cognitive Realm. Is a food there what it sees itself as being? I'll have to read and see if anyone has ever eaten while visiting Shadesmar." That's the only other time it's mentioned in the book, apart from the end with Shallan and Jasnah. I'm hopelessly intrigued Seems like I'm forgetting something - oh, yes, I mentioned I had two things on my mind. The other is the nature of the power of Stormlight and how it interacts with Roshar as a whole and people individually. But I suppose I'll save that for another time

Hey you with the face! I'm Truthless. And I'm gonna mess you up Not really. I'm a big teddy bear. I discovered Brandon Sanderson via The Wheel of Time, and picked up the Mistborn trilogy box set on a whim. Some whim I blazed through the trilogy, reveling in the well-handled plot twists and incredible characters, and had my mind sufficiently exploded at the end. I ordered The Way of Kings as soon as I heard of it - and devoured it in about a weekend. My mind has been abuzz ever since. I am, of course, named after Szeth, who is the biggest B.A. ever.