11thorderknight

That's a good point - we know there's got to be something in Jasnah's past that wasn't sunshine and roses. Her interaction with Gavilar the night of his death doesn't seem pathologic though, at least not on Gavilar's part. She makes a somewhat rude and uncalled-for remark about the party and the guests, and Gavilar gently tells her to get off her high horse. She acknowledges the rebuke. That's it. And she obviously is pretty broken up by his death, and is motivated to protect her family.

That's exactly what my point is. Jasnah is practiced enough that she can specifically draw Light from a single large gemstone, and knows the "restrictions" enough to be able to fake staying within them.

Actually, Szeth has never been irrational. Crazy, yes. But not irrational. He looks for any remote possibility that Kaladin is not a real, spren-bonded Surgebinder, but when faced with irrefutable proof, he accepts it. Also, we have a history of world-building details being hinted at through Szeth's point-of-view. Yes, we know that Nale can use Stormlight and has a Shardblade, but we just don't know enough about the heralds to say that means he absolutely must have an Honorblade.

I think there's a much simpler explanation for the restriction: it doesn't really exist. Almost everything we know about Soulcasting is actually from Way of Kings rather than Words of Radiance, and in Way of Kings it's portrayed as something done with fabrials. It would have been a huge spoiler for Brandon to say anything else during his Q&A's on the topic, so he likely dodged giving a complete answer. During the hospital room scene where Jasnah secretly soulcasts the bread and the jam, she does so while wearing a diamond, a ruby and a smokestone in her "soulcaster". You could argue that she has an emerald sphere somewhere in her purse, and that's probably true, but how does she specifically access it's Light and not the Light of the rest of her gems? Also, when she needs to Soulcast Shallan's blood, she calls for a garnet (she'd have to in order to maintain her cover) but the garnet Shallan gives her is already partly dun, and even after several rounds of Soulcasting, it still has some Light in it. I originally thought that this was because Jasnah used it to change microscopically-impure blood to blood, which is such a minor change that only trace bits of Light were used. But the simpler explanation is that the sphere simply wasn't used at all. The really incontrovertible evidence comes from Shallan during the ship sinking. She Soulcasts the entire ship into water, with no mention of garnets being used, and with specific mention that multiple different gemstones all around her cracked from the strain, meaning that she drained Light from multiple different sources to power that transformation. Later, during her conversation with Stick, there was no mention of using a ruby, either by her or by Pattern. You can't say that Shallan doesn't know about the "restriction" because she spent Way of Kings telling us about it. I think the real reason for the "restriction" is that we're introduced to Soulcasting in the context of fabrials, and that fabrials in general have a gemstone/Esssence restriction. Every fabrial we've seen is required to use a gemstone that targets the Essence the fabrial is affecting. For instance, the Regrowth fabrial used topaz/heliodor (bone/flesh), the water-vacuum used a garnet, the conjoiners use rubies (energy). Since Soulcasters can create any Essence, they can use any gem, but the Essence created by the fabrial is limited to the gemstone that powers it.

I think there must be something else to worldhopping that we just don't know about yet. Demoux, for one, doesn't have any access to Shadesmar, and while Galladon might have learned how to access it using AonDor, we know it's not a good place to be on Sel. And as has been mentioned, he'd then be stranded wherever he went. Besides, there's that whole coming-out-of-a-magic-swimming-pool-in-the-mountains thing.

So I went back and re-read that scene - Szeth specifically says to Kaladin "you have stolen Honorblades". "Honorblades" Plural. Which means, he thinks Kaladin healed his Shardblade wound using Regrowth Blade 4 or 5, and flying using Blade 2. He's given it enough thought to realize that no single Blade would explain it, but he still thinks it's possible. He doesnt' give up on the stolen-Honorblade-theory until he sees Syl become a spear and a shield. Which means, he still has enough rationality to think things through somewhat logically. Therefore, if it was not possible that Kaladin has Blade 2, because Blade 2 was never part of the Shin collection, that would be a big problem for Szeth. I'll grant that this is not absolute evidence by any means, but it is definitely food for thought. Just because we've seen Nale doesn't mean that he is the one who has his Blade.

Actually, I've been thinking the same thing. Lirin gets depicted as being very one-dimensional; obsessed with his personal view of what's right (honorable?) and willing to go to pretty significant lengths to uphold it. My bet? Kaladin will come home to find a strange, vine-like spren following him around, and his patients suddenly healing a lot faster than they used to.

That would a very, very convoluted plotline, considering that Adolin had the Shardblade ten seconds after Sadeas was dead and then threw it out the window. If Brandon were to write that, I would officially declare him to have jumped the shark.

See, that's the thing - that's an assumption, and we don't know that for sure. If you think about it, that's a pretty precarious position to be in during wartime. Take out the leader, and the troops all become ineffective? It could just as easily be that the knight serves as a catalyst to bind the squires to their particular order as a whole.

We know from WoB that the Windrunners had more, and possibly more powerful, squires than the other orders, and that some orders did not have any. One thing that's really interesting to me is whether the squires are tied to a specific Knight, or whether they are tied to the Order in general. Meaning, if for instance Kaladin were to die, or abandon his oaths, or whatever, would his squires lose their abilities? Or would they persist so long as they kept true to the Ideals of the Order?

I think "powerful" totally depends on the context. It's why the whole Knights Radiant surgebinding system is such a great one from a worldbuilding point of view - no one individual can have all ten abilities. It's different from a lot of fantasy (even mistborn) where a main character discovers they're a super-archmage that can do all of the world's magic and be super-badass. That said, from a fighting standpoint, the Windrunners and Skybreakers would probably win out for their ability to fly and generally move about very quickly. I agree we haven't seen much use for Adhesion yet, but I'm not discounting it entirely - it seems like it's based on pressure, and that pressure wave that Kaladin did in Way of Kings would be very useful if he learned to control it. Also, we haven't yet seen Division work, so we don't know how useful it actually is. On the other hand, some of the other surges are far more generally useful. Progression not only allows regrowth, but it lets you grow plants (maybe even animals?) instantaneously. You might even be able to shape the plants as you grow, and grow an entire house made out of a giant tree, for instance. Pretty cool. Soulcasting is obviously extremely useful and versatile. And I'm imagining Cohesion to allow you to basically shape things with your mind as if they were made out of clay, also incredibly useful on a world made mostly out of solid stone. Transportation is sort of a wildcard at the moment - we know it allows teleportation, but we also know there are limits to its accuracy. Until we know more, we don't really know how useful and/or practical it might be.

Select the Order you'd most like to belong to, and tell us why. I'll start: I'd choose the Elsecallers, for the combination of Soulcasting and Transportation. Two extremely useful Surges, especially on a harsh, rocky world. Also, looking into Shadesmar sounds like a fun trip!

Actually, that's exactly what I always pictured it like! Except with a little more overlap in the center, such that it forms a triangle of overlap between all three. So it actually would look a little like the legend of zelda triforce, too.

I meant later, when they're having their sky-duel.

Why do you think that?

So, we know from Szeth that the Stone Shamanate has been hiding the Honorblade collection for some time. We also know from WoB that Szeth, prior to being made Truthless, was a very respected member of Shin society. Which means he was likely high enough up in the ranks to know about the Honorblades and what they could do. We also have WoB that shortly after the breaking of the Oathpact, one of the heralds doubled back and took back his Blade. (I believe the pronoun "his" was specifically used, which is important since 5 of the 9 were in fact women). In the Taravangian interlude, Szeth visits him and has a freakout about seeing Kaladin and starting to realize that he was, in fact, correct. Taravangian talks him down, saying that Kaladin must have stolen one of the other Honorblades; "one of the two that allows Regrowth". For one thing, this tells us that Taravangian knows about the Blades. For another, it confirms that neither Vedel nor Paliah took her Blade back. We can add Shalash to that list, since she specifically mused about getting herself a Shardblade in her interlude in Way of Kings. Why am I harping on this? Because despite being very surprised and shaken by seeing Kaladin heal a Shardblade wound, he doesn't seem very fazed by seeing him use Gravitation. And if he's convinced himself that Kaladin has stolen another Honorblade....well, there are only two that allow use of Gravitation, and Szeth is currently holding one. The other belongs to Nale, who we all have been assuming as the herald that took his Blade back. But in that case, Szeth should have been totally shocked to see someone else use Gravitation. Maybe this is over-reading things. But keep in mind that we never see Nale/Darkness use his surges, just a generic Shardblade. And if it wasn't him, and it wasn't one of the girls, that only leaves Kalak and Ishar...and Kalak seems like Nale's lackey at this point. So....where's Ishar?

The scarcity and value of stormlight, though, is a complicated topic once you start really analyzing it. First of all, it's not really scarce; in fact, as far as we know, it's infinite. What's scarce is the ability of humans to capture it and store it for later use - that's determined by the number and size of gemstones that you have available to hang out during a highstorm. If you have lots of gems, you have lots of stormlight; if you have only a few, you'll have only a little bit. The only time that stormlight itself would become scarce would be during a weeping, when there's no highstorms for a long time. So really, what will happen is that the price differential of infused spheres to dun spheres will be constantly shifting, being lowest just before a highstorm (since all the dun ones are about to become recharged) and being greatest just after (since you have to wait the longest to re-infuse). I'm sure we'll see lots more Awesomeness from Lift; it's been confirmed by WoB that she will the a flashback character for the back five.

Are we sure about that? The Terris certainly seemed to think so, but I got the impression that TLR was playing a massive long con on them. Remember, the Inquisitors needed Keepers around to get spikes, and they couldn't get them from Ferrings (because there weren't any) like they could from Mistings for allomantic traits. I bet TLR let the Terris think they were oh-so-smart for tricking him and managing to keep the Keepers alive, while in reality he totally knew what was going on and was selectively "catching" them whenever he needed a spike.

Actually, that's not correct. In Adolin's first duel scene, he specifically thinks that it is NOT necessary to break the gemstone, but that it has become a tradition of sorts to do so.

This quote is actually what I was thinking of! I really like the idea of each order being something other than just A+B, B+C, and so on. Incidentally, the part where he's talking about the squires seems almost evasive. He tells us that some orders don't have any squires, and the Windrunners have more than the others, and possibly more powerful ones than the others. But he sort of evades saying anything about whether the squires of different orders will have different powers. Makes me think they won't - that they'll be able to use stormlight, but not surges.

I guess I dont' really have much evidence to refute the notion that Nalan has been following the laws, but it's arguable. In Lift's case, even the Arbiters(?) who were "disturbed" by Lift were shocked that he was going to execute her for stealing. And in Ym's case, it sounds like he wasn't aware that he was involved in a murder, which if true would be exonerating evidence under any system of law I've ever heard of. And yes, there is plenty of room for debate in the real-world examples. Unless you subscribe to the (rather outdated) idea that the King's Word is Law, it's always possible to debate the legality of any new law. In the US, laws are challenged in court all the time, all the way to the supreme court. And even the supreme court reverses previous supreme court rulings sometimes. My point is, even if you agree that all matters should be determined by the letter of the law, you can still have disagreements about what those laws ought to be, and challenge the validity of a specific law. Ultimately, I just have a very hard time accepting the notion that the original Skybreakers were mindless automatons and nags. I see them more as being concerned with overall principles of justice and with hunting down truly egregious criminals.

I like it. It's sort of another way of stating my theory of Plate being the physical manifestation of a surgebinder's ability to internally use stormlight. Would also fit with the Radiants getting kind of zonked out after abandoning their Plate at the Recreance (because they're abandoning a part of their soul).

So a while back, before Words of Radiance, I remember Brandon talking about the surgebinding system during an interview, and he described how each Order of the Knights had two surges that they shared with the adjacent orders. But he also said something to the effect that each Order would have something unique to them. In another interview, this one after WoR, he said that the actual surges would work the same way for the two orders that get access to them. There's been speculation that each order will get a "combo" effect of the surges, but this seems awkward. So my theory is that the unique attribute of each order is something that's not inherently stormlight-dependent, but is simply a byproduct of the bond. There's some evidence of this so far: Windrunners - Kaladin is an extremely effective fighter, especially when defending himself or others. We have multiple descriptions that say how he moves with the wind, at one point he thinks that he could almost fight with his eyes closed. Almost like a Jedi using the Force! My theory is that Windrunners get enhanced spacial perception/reflexes. Bet it comes in handy when changing the direction of gravity, too. Lightweavers - this one's easy; we have lots of descriptions of Shallan's "Memories" and WoB that they are more than just her being ordinarily gifted. We also have mention in Words of Radiance (the in-book book) of the order having various mnemonic abilities. My theory here is that each Lightweaver gets some mental ability related to their chosen artistic medium; Shallan, as a drawer/painter, gets photographic memory, a musician might get perfect pitch, a poet might get perfect verbal memory/rhyming, and so forth. Elsecallers - less evidence that the previous two, but Wit/Hoid makes a very significant remark about Jasnah having a very good sense of direction. Maybe geographic sense, the way certain birds always know where north is? Would fit with them being able to teleport. Truthwatchers - Renarin says he "sees things", which isn't explained by either of his surges. Prophetic dreams, maybe? Or being able to notice things that are subtle/hidden? Bondsmiths - No solid clue, though pretty sure it will deal with the nature of the Nahel bond (again, according to Words of Radiance). The rest are a total mystery. Though it would be cool if Skybreakers could tell when people are lying!

Maybe I just didn't pay close enough attention, but I don't remember any descriptions at all of Renarin's visions, or whether they're voluntary or not. We also don't have any info to link them to highstorms - in fact, there is a scene in Way of Kings where Dalinar is racing to get indoors before a highstorm hits and is forced to shelter in a public place with some soldiers, where Renarin (and Adolin maybe? I forget) have to keep him restrained. Implies pretty strongly that Renarin doesn't lose control during the highstorms.

Good find on the Second Ideal quote! Seems right on. "I will put the law above all else". The thing about it is that it very much depends on what you mean by "law". Who gets to set the law? Who gets to change it? Where does the authority for it come from? These are all pretty big philosophical debates, and I could easily envision the Skybreakers having internal debates about it. To use a real-world example: English-speaking countries have a strong tradition of Common Law, which basically means that there are certain legal principles that underlie any laws passed by legislatures, and that these laws have to comply with. Sort of like an unwritten constitution. France and French-speaking countries, on the other hand, have a Civil Law tradition where, basically, the government sets the laws in their entirety. Which system would the Skybreakers comply with? What would they do if they moved to North Korea and had to obey Kim Jong Il's laws? That's what I mean by Nalan being corrupted. It's fine to believe that the law has to ultimately guide decisions/judgements, but twisting the law to justify evil ends is in no way in keeping with the overall theme of the Radiants.