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11thorderknight

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  1. 11thorderknight
    Regarding Shallan's Memory - am I the only one that thinks the Nightwatcher is involved here? It's obviously a neurologic effect, and we know from Steelhunt that people who have visited the Old Magic are prime candidates for a Nahel bond.
  2. 11thorderknight
    @Shardlet - I see how I didn't really explain myself clearly. The point I was trying to make is that the Desolations weren't something that were caused directly by Odium, in the sense that he sends an army of bad guys to Roshar. Rather, my theory is that surgebinders are subject to the Spiderman principle: with great power comes great responsibility. In this case, not only is there the temptation for them to use regular surgebinding for selfish purposes, but (here's the theory) Odium allows surgebinders access to his own magic system, voidbinding, which makes them both more powerful and more corrupt/evil. This is what I meant by a critical mass - given enough surgebinders, a certain proportion of them will turn to Odium, and with enough of the evil surgebinders/voidbinders running around, mayhem ensues. This, then, is the reason why the Radiants may have done something to eliminate surgebinding from Roshar entirely, and apparently succeeded. And now that surgebinding is coming back, there is no organization to it, and inevitably some of its practitioners will become corrupted. Did I explain that any better?
  3. 11thorderknight
    Huh. Ok, well, maybe it wasn't in direct response to the Heralds. But I still think I'm onto something regarding surgebinding, the lack thereof for 4k years, and the Recreance. And especially with the WoR readings. Also - sorry, my bad. Could a mod move this to WoR discussion please?
  4. 11thorderknight
    So I've been doing some thinking about the betrayal of the Radiants, Vorin beliefs, and some of Brandon's readings from WoR, and I've come to a theory. The Oathpact gave humans access to magic, at the cost of also giving them access to the magic of Odium, and Odium access to them. Desolations occurred every time a critical mass of surgebinders turned to the Dark Side, if you will. To fight this, Honor appointed ten Heralds, to give leadership to humankind during these times; in exchange, Odium got them during the downtimes. Eventually, Nohadon, realizing how much humans backslid during the quiet, good days, created the Radiants, to provide institutional memory and stability separate from the Heralds. This was good. One day, the Heralds called it quits. They had almost won by having 9/10 stay alive, and they thought the Radiants would be able to hold things together. The abandoned their Blades and went incognito. Eventually, the Radiants realized what had really happened. Despairing of facing another Desolation without the Heralds, they did what they thought was the only thing they could to prevent it - they abandoned their Shards and gave up surgebinding, hoping thereby to prevent any more Desolations from coming. The rest of mankind suddenly lost access to the benefits of surgebinding (i.e. Soulcasting, Regrowth, Travel, etc. etc). and were pissed. Chaos ensued from soldiers getting hold of Shards, kingdoms fell, etc. The ardents could certainly justify spinning this event as a great betrayal, and over time, the details of the betrayal were lost. We don't know what the Radiants did to end surgebinding for over 4 thousand years, but clearly something happened - even before Nohadon founded the Orders, surgebinders existed. And now, surgebinders are starting to exist again, just in time for the Last Desolation. And we know the Parshendi freaked and tried to prevent the return of their "lost gods", whatever those are. And we know that someone is trying to kill surgebinders. Have at it, folks.
  5. 11thorderknight
    Sounds like it's common for Jezrien to be seen as first among equals, to some extent. Prime Kadasix sounds like its in keeping with this idea; after all, a "prime kadasix" is still a kadasix, by definition, not something higher. and "prime" literally means first.
  6. 11thorderknight
    I second that - remember, we've seen Szeth "throw" stormlight at objects in order to Invest them with altered gravity in a couple of his battle scenes......i think it was described as sort of like throwing paint at a wall. Just because people using fabrials need to touch an object in order to soulcast it doesn't mean that a Radiant would have to. It probably is less efficient in using stormlight though, which contributed to her gem cracking. As for magnetism - it could definitely be Surge 7/8, since the 8th order is associated with metal. I've noticed that from what we've seen, most of the orders have one of their surges that are somewhat more thematically appropriate than the other one. The Windrunners seem to be an exception, both Gravity and Pressure fit pretty well, but that's probably because they were the first to be placed on the chart and Brandon had more freedom with them. For the rest...Skybreakers certainly fits with Pressure, but not as much with Heat or whatever it will be called. We don't know exactly what Stonewards will have, but Travel is a strong contender given the Starfalls vision. Which is fine, but does that really fit thematically with stone? And with Order 4...well, let's just say their surges are a thematic stretch. I'm not being negative, just saying that what orders it's next to in the chart isn't completely predictive of what a surge will be. Anyway, along those lines....I think Transformation actually fits really well at 6/7, because it's the border of Water and Oil...two things that don't mix, and require a transition to go from one to the other. But light at 5/6 is totally random, especially since crystal/lucentia is #4 and i really expected it to be at 3/4 or 4/5. So, basically what i'm saying is that we have no idea what 7/8 will be.
  7. 11thorderknight
    Let's give Jasnah some credit - organic substances are WAY more complex than inorganics (for the most part). Plus, add in the whole Ten Essences business, and it's obvious why Jasnah can't make convincing stawberry jam. According to the soulcasting system, making pure blood is the easiest thing you can do with a garnet. Ditto for making stone, or metal, or crystal. However, to make organic material, Jasnah would have to start out with an emerald, which would give her Pulp (basic plant fibers, i guess) and she'd then have to turn that into the complexity of the specific organic that she wanted. Even plain bread is probably not that easy. I bet that when the Ardents make food, they just make raw grain, which is pretty close to Pulp. As an aside, I would totally use a heliodor to turn boulders into filet mignon :-)
  8. 11thorderknight
    First of all, we're told very specifically that having no memory of his wife is Dalinar's boon, not his curse. We also know that the curses, as far as we've seen and also apparently per WoB, are neurological (Cognitive?) in nature. However, the boons aren't - there's a story in the Interlude about the guy who was cursed to see the world upside down getting a sack of expensive cloth or something. So, the boon doesn't have to be neurological.
  9. 11thorderknight
    Barring significant further information, I'm putting Dustbringers as #3. That gives them Friction and whatever's shared with the Skybreakers, which i bet is Heat. Heat + Friction = fire :-)
  10. 11thorderknight
    I'm on record as believing that Szeth has an Honorblade and that it is the source of his abilities. Since he has Windrunner powers and his eyes turn blue, it would obviously be Jezrien's sword. As mentioned above, the sword of retribution would make sense for Nalan, since his first ideal is Justice. I think the more interesting thing is the part about "emitting sunlight", since Nalan is associated with Smoke/Vapor. I'm very curious as to what Surge will be shared by orders # 2 and 3. The only reasonable contenders I can imagine would be either Heat or Light, but I honestly throught those would be two separate but adjacent surges, shared by #3. However, since that's not the case for REDACTED reasons, only one of those can go in that area of the chart.
  11. 11thorderknight
    The original Magician trilogy was awesome, one of the series that first got me into fantasy as a kid. The Empire books with JW were also really good, though a bit different (much less magic, more politics). The two after that were ok, especially King's Buccaneer. After that.....well, it becomes very obvious that Feist has become the Danielle Steele of the D&D derived fantasy genre.
  12. 11thorderknight
    My take on Nicrosil: A full feruchemist (I'm going to call them Keepers, for simplicity's sake, much like full allomancers are called Mistborn) who has a Nicrosil metalmind would be able to store whatever attribute he wanted in another metalmind (for example, store weight in an ironmind) and then store that storage, i.e. investiture, into the nicrosilmind. Then, he could tap the investiture to fill ANY of his metalminds. The upshot of this is that it essentially allows a Keeper to fuel any of the feruchemical abilities by storing any of the other abilities that might not be as useful in that situation. In other words, it makes feruchemy end-positive with respect to each particular ability. The most direct application I can think of would be to constantly be storing weight, heat, and calories/hydration, and then use those to fuel things that are hard to store up, like speed, health, or alertness. This would actually make a Keeper with access to a nicrosilmind a total badass, if you think about it. In the case of a Twinborn with Feruchemical nicrosil, I propose that he would be able to burn whatever his allomantic metal happens to be (say, for argument's sake, pewter), and instead of getting stronger/faster/awesomer, he could store that energy/investiture in his nicromind. He could then tap the nicromind to get allomantic pewter effect without needing to burn pewter. However, since feruchemy can be tapped in one fell swoop, he could tap an hour's worth of burned pewter in a minute, thereby making his pewter allomancy 60x more powerful. That's how TLR was able to be such a strong allomancer - he stored allomantic strength in nicrominds for when he needed it. It's actually quite elegant, if you think about it. The combination of allomancy and feruchemy allows allomancy to overcome the limitations of feruchemy through compounding, and it allows feruchemy to overcome the limitations of allomancy through investiture storage. Brilliant!
  13. 11thorderknight
    Good points, guys. Seems like the talk of the Three Lashings got me confused. There was definitely a WoB quote out there though, that said something about each Order having something unique. Maybe Morsk is onto something...
  14. 11thorderknight
    Hi all, So, recent discussions about the names of the various orders and their surges has me questioning a couple of things. We know that each Order shares two Surges with the two adjacent orders. But does that mean that each Order is able to do the same things with them? Or does each Order combine its two surges to form a unique set of abilities? For instance, the Windrunners, who are the only ones we know about for sure, share Pressure and Gravity, and they can perform their Three Lashings. The Basic and Reverse Lashing seem to be related to Gravity, whereas the Full Lashing seems to be more to do with Pressure. Does that mean that one of its neighbors will be able to do the Full Lashing and the other the Basic/Reverse? Or, will they each combine Pressure and Gravity with another surge to create entirely different abilities?
  15. 11thorderknight
    As soon as I heard the name "Skybreakers" I immediately thought they'd be #2. It would mean they'd share Pressure with #1, and a likely candidate for Surge 2/3 would be something related to heat, and if you combine heat and atmospheric pressure you get.....weather! (including lightning). Makes total sense for that order to be called Skybreakers. Also - can someone explain where the name "Brightcallers" came from? It's been thrown about, but I don't see a source anywhere.
  16. 11thorderknight
    Well, if the Radiant glows red, there's really only two options, order 3, ruby, or order 6, garnet. I'm guessing it's gonna be #3, because I bet Brandon would have described garnet as "crimson" or "blood-red" or "dark red" or what have you.
  17. 11thorderknight
    I think we discussed the number of different blades a long time ago in a different post, but here's my take, and why I'm absolutely convinced that Szeth has Jezrien's Blade: 1. Different Blades we see in WoK include: the ten various Honorblades (9 in the prologue, 1 in the epilogue). There's no question that's what they are. 2. Various "modern" Blades, as wielded by the highprinces, etc. 3. Szeth's Blade. 4. The Blades of the Knights Radiant, in Dalinar's visions. ("classic" Blades, if you will....) Since we've seen 3 kinds, two of the above must be the same. I don't think the "classic" and "modern" Blades are the same, based on Syl's reaction to them and the Day of Recreance scene, along with the fact that classic and modern Plate are obviously different as well. Obviously, the Honorblades don't fall into the "classic" or "modern" categories either. Szeth doesn't have a spren, so he clearly doesn't have a "classic" Blade either. So, unless you think his Blade is no different that any other "modern" Blade, by process of elimination it must be an Honorblade. The Honorblade theory is supported by the fact that Szeth's eyes turn to a glowing blue when he summons it, which doesn't happen with other Blades. It also would explain where he got his powers. Otherwise, there must be another mechanism for gaining surgebinding abilities. Which is possible. But, we don't know of one yet, so...yeah. That's what I think.
  18. 11thorderknight
    Two things - first, where did the name "Brightcallers" appear? I totally missed that in the published material, but people are discussing it as though it's been out there for a while.... Second, regarding Lightweavers. Brandon at some point stated that, although each Shardworld has it's own magic system, if two systems were to grant similar abilities, those abilities would work similarly. I think he used the example of healing, saying that Feruchemical gold works in a very similar manner to Regrowth. In AoL he even describes how Wayne needs Wax to peel off his burned skin so the new stuff can grown in. My point is that the illusion magic we've seen so far had been Hoid doing his thing with dusts and powders, and he somehow bends light (lightweaves?) around particles in the air to make illusions. So, I propose that the Order of Lightweavers is #3, associated with Spark. Being next to #2, Smoke, fits in very well with illusion magic as we've seen in so far in the Cosmere. My theory as to the Surges, based on current info: Surges Orders 10-1: Gravity 1. Windrunners 1-2: Pressure 2. Dustbringers ? (or maybe Skybreakers) 2-3: ? (either heat or light or a combination) 3. Lightweavers 3-4: REDACTED (steelhunt) 4. REDACTED (steelhunt) 4-5: REDACTED (steelhunt) 5. ??? 5-6: ??? 6. ??? 6-7: Change (soulcasting, shared by Shallan and Jasnah) 7. ??? 7-8: ??? (Jasnah's other surge) 8. ??? 8-9: ? Travel 9. Stonewards 9-10: ? Strength (thinking of something to go between Flesh and Stone) 10. Skybreakers ? (per WoB)
  19. 11thorderknight
    I think at this point, with the evidence we have, Nan Helaran could have been the Sharbearer, or not...either scenario is equally plausible. But I think there's a few points that people haven't seemed to consider so far in this discussion, so I'd like to bring them up. 1. The Shardbearer most likely had a tattoo or pendant identifying him as a Ghostblood, since all the others we've seen so far have had them, and since Amaram pretty clearly knew his affiliation. If Helaran had such an item, I think his father would have had one as well, and no mention is ever made of finding such upon his death. 2. Where would the Blade and Plate have come from? Yes, the Ghostbloods would have provided it, I realize that. But why at this point, and why to Helaran? They're bankrolling his father with the Soulcaster in order to later use him as a political puppet, but they can put that Plate and Blade on anyone and send them into battle incognito. On the other hand, giving Helaran Shards could be very problematic, for two reasons: it lessens their control over House Davar by making their heir pretty much invincible, and it raises questions about where he got Shards. Remember....you can hide a Blade, as long as you don't use it much, but you can't hide Plate, not even in the boonies of Jah Keved. 3. It's true that the Chekhov's Gun rule would favor Helaran being the Shardbearer. However, it's also true that characters who disappear and are "declared dead" at the start of a 10 book series have a habit of reappearing. It's quite possible that Shallan's father only got in with the Ghostbloods relatively recently and kept all his kids in the dark, including Helaran. When Helaran found out, he could realized that if he wasn't down with the plan, it would be in the interests of his health to disappear....and he did. The phrase "declared dead" seems somewhat metaphorical to me, as in "He's dead to me" (i.e. we don't talk to him and/or about him ever again in this house). 4. If the Ghostbloods gave House Davar Shards, why wouldn't Lord Davar have used them himself? He would have been just as anonymous, and in full Shardgear, would have been just as effective as his younger son. He doesn't sound like the kind of guy that would have trusted his heir with Shards in the first place. 5. Even discounting Shallan's Blade, having Helaran be the Shardbearer would mean that the Ghostbloods had given House Davar a major Soulcaster, a Blade, and Plate. That's several kings ransoms right there, and it's enough to make a guy like Lord Davar feel secure enough to seriously reconsider how obedient he's gonna be to the Ghostbloods. After all, what are they or anyone else gonna do to him?
  20. 11thorderknight
    Just a fun poll for those of us with time to kill: if you were a Rosharan noble and could choose whether to own a Shardblade or Shardplate (but not both), which would you choose? My thinking: if you had only one or the other, Plate is definitely more useful in war. It's not as flashy as a Blade, but it pretty much lets you walk through an enemy army unharmed, and gives you the strength to pretty much be a walking tank. Even if the enemy's eyes don't burn when you smack them, they're still just as dead. A Blade, while badass, leaves you open to injury like a regular person, and in a large-scale conflict you'd definitely be taken down eventually. A Blade, however, is probably better against another Shardbearer, since it at least gives you a fighting chance to touch the guy. Also, it can be kept hidden, which can be nice, and you're never without it. Plate, however, has to be taken on and off, and requires transport, storage, money for gems, attendants, etc. Unless you're paranoid and sleep in it, you're always vulnerable at some point. If I had to pick, I'd take the Blade and keep it hidden, but it's a close call. And if I had to acknowledge the shard publicly, I'd probably choose Plate.
  21. 11thorderknight
    Could someone please PM me one of the steelhunt codes? I'd love to get a peek at the interlude since I've been theorizing on the Essences/Orders/Surges stuff for a while now.... please?
  22. 11thorderknight
    Honor is entirely subjective - that's the point. Brandon beats us over the head with this during Shallan's philosophy "lesson". One could argue that it's the central question of philosophy - what is good? Is it wrong to kill three people? Generally, yes. What if it's in self-defense? Generally, no. What if it's in self-defense, but you lured them into attacking you? What if you had the ability, at some risk to yourself, of disabling them non-lethally? See, it gets complicated. My personal opinion is that Honor is like pornography - it's subjective and very difficult to define, but we all know it when we see it, and one person's version might be different from another's, with both being equally legitimate interpretations.
  23. 11thorderknight
    I just realized something - is there any other place in Way of Kings that uses the words "east" or "west" other than the reference to Urithiru being "westward"? IIRC, all current-day references use the terms "stormward" and "leeward" to refer to east and west, respectively. If this is the only reference, it could be a strong indicator that the Highstorms didn't exist at the time of the Radiants. Which obviously would have further implications...
  24. 11thorderknight
    Wow. As much as I love massive epics like Wheel of Time and Stormlight Archive, I truly feel that a short story, or short novel, can pack a stronger punch in the right hands. Leave it to Brandon to prove this yet again. To take a fairly plot-less slasher video game and turn it into THIS - amazing. I was convinced halfway through the book that we'd find out that Uriel turns out to be Ausar/Siris. (I guess it still could be, who knows...but not looking likely). I was a little frustrated that we don't learn more of Siris's backstory - who was he, back when he was Ausar? What was the rivalry between him and Raidriar? And how did he manage to originally imprison the Worker of Secrets?
  25. 11thorderknight
    There seems to be a pretty HUGE plot inconsistency related to the Tenth Heightening. Namely, if it allows Mental Commands, then what's the point of cutting out the God-King's tongue? If he has Mental Command, he would still be able to Awaken. ???
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