11thorderknight

Yeah, I don't quite know what to make of the "sea" aspect of Shadesmar's topography. What I meant was that, since a city has a lot more going on cognitively, it would take more effort to navigate in Shadesmar than empty terrain would. Whether this would be more effort than physical travel....who knows.

Hmm - I can't think of one, but doesn't mean it couldn't exist. That would be pretty cool. Also, as far as Feruchemy goes, it's possible that enough Feruchemical zinc would have let Tan do what he did - it seems to speed up thought to the point where you perceive the world in slow motion, and possibly allows you to calculate/think faster/better. Tap enough zinc, and you might be able to see Wax's finger start to pull the trigger, have some time to figure out exactly which was the gun is pointing, calculate how fast you'd have to move, etc. Not saying this is what actually happened, but it could be a possible explanation.

An interesting thing to look for with Darkness is what abilities he demonstrates. If he can bind surges like the knights of Nalan's corresponding order (skybreakers) he should be able to fly, change things' gravitational vector and blow things up. The only evidence I see so far is that he does seem to travel quite widely, but of course any ability can be replicated by a fabrial also. While I can see that he wouldn't want to fly around the palace, apparently she has gotten away from him before. It should be quite difficult to escape someone who can fly. Edit: surgebinding abilities Small point, but I don't think the Skybreakers could fly; they share the Pressure surge with the Windrunners, not Gravity, and it's pretty clear from the Szeth and Kaladin points of view in WoK, as well as from the Ars Arcanum, that flying uses the Gravity surge. So, Ishar's order, not Nalan's, should be the other flying guys. The Skybreakers should be able to make what the Windrunners call "full lashings", maybe do that air pressure push that Kaladin did once when he leveled up, and use whatever pyrotechnics they share with the Dustbringers. Sounds like in the Radiant army, these guys were the heavy artillery.

Yeah, I'd be shocked if all ten orders didnt' have the same basic ability to internally use stormlight. It fits with them all sharing the First Ideal, and then branching out to the separate Ideals for more complex surgebinding.

I don't really have much to contribute regarding the supply of atium, but I do want to comment on the theory that Tan was using electrum. Specifically, that #1) electrum is a known entity in Wax's time, and therefore would be known to Wax and, even if not anticipated, then at least recognized after the fact. More importantly, #2) electrum doesn't work that way. It lets you see your own future, and lets you see the results of various decisions that you might make. In Tan's case, it would have let him see that standing still would have gotten him shot. If Wax was anticipating him dodging, it might have let him see that dodging to the left would also have gotten him shot, but dodging to the right would have been safe. But it wouldn't have shown him the trajectory of Wax's bullet like atium would have, and it would not have shown him which way to move to get Wax to hit Lessie. I really don't see any allomantic explanation for what happened other than atium use.

I've been a proponent of the "empty space in the physical realm takes up no room in shadesmar" theory, so i'm glad that it seems to be bearing out. the implication is that, when the Elsecallers/Bondsmiths enter Shadesmar, they can enter it physically, move around, then exit again....and that the time/effort it takes to cross the distance is not necessarily the same. the downside is that it might actually take a lot more effort to "teleport" through shadesmar than to just walk, if you were going from one end of a big city to the other, for example.

The simplest explanation is that the Three Lashings are known as that because they are the three different ways that Windrunners had of binding things to each other. Creating a pressure wave to knock back enemies, or cushion a fall from height, or whatever you want to do with it, is useful, but it doesn't bind anything, and hence the Windrunners didn't include it in their Lashings....because it's not Lashing anything together.

There's no such thing as "modern" soulcasters; they're all ancient artifacts. It's just that some are limited in what they can do, and only a few are capable of any transformation. As to whether Jasnah knows how they work and what they look like - she's spent her entire life studying, and one of her Order's divine attributes is "careful". Don't you think she's done her homework before attempting a giant hoax like a fake soulcaster?? Also, we have seen a soulcaster work in WoK; one of Taravangian's minions, who gives him the list, uses a lesser one to turn a wall into smoke.

I think the use of the word "devils" here is very deliberate on Brandon's part - it's generic enough that it could conceivably be used to describe anyone, and therefore keeps us totally in the dark :-) Seriously....it could mean a human enemy army, actual devils/monsters/what-have-you, non-human humanoids (parshendi) etc....

Exactly - hence my theory, posted elsewhere, that Yaezir is the Emuli name for Ishar, who is in fact the old guy drooling at the feast.

If forgot about the Soothing stations having Seekers - that adds even more to the discrepancy. Even more confusion. Can anyone actually find the original WoB on this?

So, something that's always been a little confusing to me is the relationship between copper and bronze allomancy. It's never really addressed directly, but in the scene where Marsh tutors Vin in Seeking, he thinks that most Mistborn don't use bronze very much, preferring to hide their Mistborn status with copper instead. This implies that they can't do both at the same time. This seems to be the general consensus, and supposedly there's some WoB on the topic, but I haven't seen the exact quote. This has always bothered me, in that it doesn't quite make sense. We know that Smokers create a Coppercloud around themselves that shields allomancers inside the cloud from being detected by Seekers outside the cloud. However, in order to prevent a Mistborn from using both metals at once, copper would have to interfere with the use of bronze inside the cloud. While this is a possibility, there are several problems with it. The first is that it would have to be the result of a separate mechanism in the way copper works. We know it tamps down the pulses given off by allomancers, since it shields them from detection by Seekers far away, who are well outside the range of the Coppercloud. To block the use of bronze inside the cloud, then, implies a separate effect. We currently don't know of any other metal that does two different things. The bigger problem with this theory, however, is that it actually makes copper much less useful for hiding. In this scenario, all a Seeker has to do to find allomancers hiding in a safehouse would be to walk around town. Whenever their Seeking ability suddenly goes down, they know they're in a Coppercloud, and a safehouse is nearby. Since this doesn't happen, the implication is that Seekers are not directly affected by Smokers. So - does anyone know exactly what Brandon has said on this issue?

I'd like to address several topics brought up in this discussion so far, if I may: 1. Father's death - While we obviously don't know the details, the big picture is fairly clear, i think; Brightlord Davar loses his tempter, starts beating on Nan Balat, situation goes out of control, stuff hits the fan, Davar ends up dead. My guess is Shallan smacked him upside the head with a pitcher of wine, or something equally random. This would account for the blood. Or maybe she sliced his corpse in half with the Shardblade after he was dead. In the big picture, it doesn't really matter. 2. Shardblade - It's implied pretty strongly that Shallan got it the night of her father's death, since she describes it to herself as "the fruit of her most heinous act" or some thing to that effect. I don't think her brothers know about the Shardblade, otherwise they wouldn't let her keep it. One of them would take it for himself, and I'm guessing that the mere fact of being a Shardbearer would correct their political problems and open up a solution to their money problems, at least in some fashion. As to why Shallan doesn't want to sell it - it would be like trying to sell the Mona Lisa. It's a priceless item, and something which is priceless doesn't really have a market for it. Sure, it might be possible to arrange a private sale to very wealthy lord or prince. But anyone with the resources to buy a Blade would also have the resources to simply take it away from them. Or take the money back once they had the Blade, which is the same thing. I don't think you can sell one at the local pawn shop. 3. Soulcaster - The gems are known to be interchangeable, therefore they are not the critical portion of the device. The metal housing of the gem is probably important, but there's obviously something more to it than purely physical form, otherwise the repair of Soulcaster post-slicing should have restored its function. Also, there would probably be Soulcasters all over the place if the shape was all that mattered. I don't know if a "trapped spren" is really the mechanism, or something else, but again, that's not really important at the moment. The important thing is that it's a magic device powered by replaceable gemstones that was damaged and, while physically repaired, no longer has magical properties. 4. Luesh - He was probably Brightlord Davar's "handler" from the Ghostbloods, assigned to watch over him and "assist" him, and make sure the Soulcaster, which was on loan, was safe. He was probably freaking out when it broke, and went along with Shallan's plan to steal Jasnah's because it was the only way he saw to keep himself out of major hot water with the organization. His poor choice of timing in regards of when to have his heart attack has been very inconvenient for Shallan's brothers, but I don't see reason, at this time, to suspect an ulterior cause of death. Because if the Ghostbloods had killed him, they'd know that the Soulcaster was broken, and wouldn't bother dropping hints that it should be returned. And if they wanted Jasnah's "Soulcaster", they certainly would not wait for Shallan to steal it for them, they'd do it themselves. Whether they believe her Soulcaster story, or want her dead for other reasons, we will find out. Again, I don't think their plans for Jasnah and their plans for the Davar's are related.

I think people are missing the extremely obvious explanation here - Elhokar himself drained his own gemstones. We know he's seeing Cryptics, after all, and given Shallan's experience with them, they're not ones to explain themselves or give a lecture on the theory of using Investiture, Wyndle-style. I took that scene as a second hint that he's going to be a Surgebinder (the first being his reference to seeing the Cryptics in mirrors). Do I know what he did with that Stormlight? No clue. But it's quite possible he did nothing productive, just held it for a few minutes until it leaked out.

As Mark Twain once said, "The difference between the almost-right word and the right word is like the difference between a lightning bug and lightning." I don't care how detailed the outlines Mr. Jordan left were, there was no way Memory of Light wouldn't have been infinitely better had either he or Sanderson had the opportunity to tell it over the number of books that it deserved. As for Shara....sure, it's foreshadowed. Echoing my first point, maybe if it had been brought into the series in a less Deus-ex-machina sort of way, it wouldn't have felt like such a cop-out. And I don't think Taimandred was too obvious at all, it just seems that way to you because you've been aware of it as a possibility/theory for so long.

If you look at exactly what Taravangian says, I think it's pretty clear - for whatever reasons, he thinks that in order to save humanity he needs to cause massive political instability. When Dalinar was the Blackthorn, Taravangian was content to leave him alone, but once he showed signs of becoming a better leader, he's on the list. It's not a mystery at all why Elhokar wasn't on it - for one thing, the Alethi haven't forgotten Szeth's last visit, and more importantly, he's basically a useless figurehead of a king, suiting Taravangian's purposes just fine.

I'll start this post by saying that I think Brandon did a superhuman job with the cards he was dealt, in terms of finishing Wheel of Time. I'll also say how painful it feels to admit this, because of how much I loved the series..... ...having said that, I have to admit that in all honesty, I thought Memory of Light was a huge flop. The major issues for me were that it felt extremely rushed, and I have NO doubt that if Jordan had lived to write it himself, he would have broken it up into at least 2 or 3 more books, regardless of what he'd said beforehand. But I think Team Jordan knew that, with Brandon taking over, they really had to wrap things up in order to retain the fan base, who were clamoring for an ending. The other big dealbreaker for me was that, in an epic with character arcs spanning thousands of pages and tons of critical foreshadowing, you don't just pull out a new major supervillain at the very end. (Yes, I'm taking about Bao the Wyld, or Bao the This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules as I like to call him). I know people will say that it's the answer to the Demandred mystery that we were all preoccupied with, but that excuse doesn't hold water. I'm absolutely convinced that Jordan's original plan was to have Demandred be Taim, but when the fans figured it out way before he wanted them to, he decided to change things. We'll never know, I guess, but I just don't see how any other explanation fits. Oh, and I also was convinced that the Sealing of the Bore would require the One Power to be lost to humanity. If you think about it, all the implications of circular time, of Randland being our world in the past/future, of a time before/after the One Power, of the emergence of new technologies, of the Dark One's touch making saidin/saidar seem to fail....it was all leading somewhere. Not sure when Jordan changed his mind on that, if he was leaving himself options or what, but the ending just felt very anti-climactic. Again, not knocking either Brandon or Jordan here; Brandon did a great job finishing the series, and Jordan, sadly, never had the chance to finish it the way he should have been able to. All I'm saying is that, when I think of the Wheel of Time, I still think of it as an unfinished work....which, perhaps, is somehow fitting.

Definitely agree with you on the second part! And - you're right. the Vorin names are all phonetic palindromes, so the J in Jezerezeh, at least, must be pronounced Y or H. Good catch.

What makes you reasonably sure of this? I'll admit, there's no evidence to support Yaezir = Ishar, but there's even less evidence to support Yaezir = Jezrien. Also (not that it matters) Jezrien's name is about 5000 years old, and likely not even Alethi in origin. We have no idea how it's meant to be pronounced, unless someone's heard Brandon read the Prelude to WoK at some point. The letter J in romance languages has at least 4 different pronunciations that I can think of: J as in judge, Y as in yellow, H as in hello, and Sh as in short. We don't really know (at least I don't) how Brandon meant for it to sound, but he's said before that he doesn't really care how readers pronounce his characters names. I really doubt he'd be putting oblique character identity references in the letter J.

Actually, I read this entirely differently. The phrases "King of Heralds" and "Herald of Kings" have two entirely different meanings. I think Brandon is throwing us a (somewhat?) subtle hint as to the identity of another of the Heralds. I believe that "Prime Kadasix" does, indeed, refer to Jezrien. But if that's the case, why also use the phrase "Kadasix of kings"? Especially coupled with another name, Yaezir? My theory: Jezrien is the king of the heralds, known to the Emuli as the Prime Kadasix. However, Yaezir is their name for a different herald, one who is/was known as "herald of kings". The name Yaezir is actually somewhat close, linguistically speaking, to the name Ishar (similar Y/I sound at the start of the name, similar Z/Sh sound in the middle, both end with R, same number of syllables). Add to this Darkness' comment "...if he ever stops drooling", and the appearance of a bearded old drunk man lying around the king's palace in Kholinar, and there's a definite connection. Also, Jezrien and Ishar form the two ends of the Herald progression that come around full circle, and it would definitely fit for them to be known as "king of heralds" and "herald of kings" respectively.

I wonder how that's gonna work for kandra in the "modern" series. I mean, once people invent x-rays and TSA checkpoints, their ability to change their shape becomes vastly more limited by their requirement to have spikes :-)

Regarding the geography of Shadesmar - the way I interpret it is that each of the little glass beads is the Cognitive aspect of an object in the physical realm, regardless of what the object actually looks like physically. Each bead is "1 physical unit" of whatever it is, whatever it sees itself as. Therefore, on dry land, in a city or really anywhere else, there will be lots of discrete objects; things, rocks, creatures, trees, etc. These will all have their own glass bead in Shadesmar, making a big ocean of glass beads. Out at sea, though, aside from the occasional fish or what have you, there's only one, giant object - the water. In Shadesmar, this is represented by a large solid mass, which is perceived as land in Shadesmar. Hence, "land" and "sea" are reversed there. This is also why you can use Shadesmar to travel between planets. Since there's nothing in outer space, there are no beads there in Shadesmar, and also no distance. Therefore, you can walk to the edge of Roshar, then take one step and be on the edge of another world. Whether you have to go up into the air to get to the edge of the atmosphere, that I don't know. But I'm pretty confident that in the Cognitive realm, distance and size is determined by cognitive presence.

Personally, I think he's going to be Order 10.

This is exactly my point. All Radiants are Surgebinders, yes, but not all Surgebinders are necessarily Radiants. Prior to Nohadon, none of the Surgebinders were Radiants, not even those who bonded to Honorspren. After the founding of the Orders, it's possible that all new bonds were to Honorspren, and all the Surgebinders became Radiants. Or maybe the Radiants just kept the peace, so to speak, and prevented unaffiliated Surgebinders from doing anything bad. And just because Brandon has said that Shallan is a Surgebinder (which is clearly obvious from the book) doesn't mean that she's going to be a Radiant (although I her character and want her to be). I still think there's something fundamentally different about the Cryptics and by extension, the Surgebinders they bond to.

I brought this up in another topic, without alluding directly to what Darkness says, but my theory is that something about "magic" on Roshar leads to Desolations. My theory is that Odium corrupts surgebinders by offering them access to voidbinding, which is somehow more powerful but evil.....kind of like the Dark Side of the Force. Once you have enough surgebinders running around, it's only a matter of time before some critical mass turns to Odium, and a Desolation begins.