QuantumHarmonix

I chose forger, but I'm not sure my head-cannon holds up. Do you think it's possible for a forger to make an essence mark that would give them access to all the other powers. I could see a problem with something like surgebinding that needs a spren. But surely it would be pretty easy to make a mark that would attract a cryptic. I could see them loving the lies that a forger can make.

After looking through a Thesaurus, I'd pick Prudence as a shard name that would combine the Divine Attributes of Wisdom and Care. And that then makes me think about the Seven Virtues And there is also another set that is more in opposition seven deadly sins. Those would be Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, and Humility.

I always thought she was going to be an important clue to figuring out the chart. Then I saw that WoB and was crushed. :cry:

The three gods angle does make more sense. It’s just when I saw the objects from other shardworlds, it implied worldhopping to me. And I just kind of assumed that worldhopping brings with it an understanding of realmatic theory. Of course it is also possible that they are more like the men in black and just collect and catalogue alien artifacts from world hoppers without knowing enough to travel themselves.

I hadn’t considered that the three diamonds represented the three shards in the Roshar system. When I realized that the organization was very cosmere aware I thought they they might represent the three realms, Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual. Might be both I guess.

Here is another odd thought. We know that Adonalsium was on Roshar at some point, or left some power there. What if the Herald’s divine attributes are a reflection of different ways that his power could have been split. So things like Confident and Leading would make Ambition and Loving and Obiediant would make Devotion. My only pause is that the traits are all fairly positive. Though it is possible that Odium took control of the more negative traits like his own Hate and Ruin’s Destruction. If this has merit, I could see the cautious shard being a merger of Wisdom and Care.

Wow! I've never seen that WoB before. That is a really strong indicator.

You know I'm surprised that no one has brought up the Jewish concept of the Sefirot from the Kabbalah. Not that it's something that I'm terribly familiar with, it just seems like it has a strong comparison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefirot

That sounds very Green Lantern

Thanks for the WoB's. I do think its a pretty safe bet that everything up until the Recreance scene are things Honor either saw directly or was around to know specifics. It's just that bit of wiggle room that makes me think there is going to be some "fact" that is being put in a different light from the way things actually went down. I think it would be interesting to ask how far Dalinar has stretched the visions beyond what Honor intended and how much has the Stormfather filled in.

So the exact quote is And typically I would interpret it exactly the way you say. I just have this little nagging voice that keeps telling me this would be a good way to misdirect us. Like we assume that we know how the Recreance occurred because we've seen the vision of the Knights abandoning their blades. But do we have a WoB that that scene is one that Honor saw directly or was it something that he feared would happen after his death? It just makes me cautious to rely on the visions too strongly. As we can't really say how much of them are things as they really happened, how much were just things Honor feared would happen, and how much is the Stormfather filling in with his own assumptions when Dalinar goes off script. Which still isn't to say the information isn't useful. Honor and the Stormfather would know a lot of things that will be useful. It's just that they aren't impartial observers and may color and re-frame the events they show Dalinar. And I could see a very Star Wars like scene in the future where the Stormfather tells Dalinar that he didn't lie, that what he told was true, from a certain point of view.

I've not seen anyone mention this before, but what worries me most about the visions is that Honor said that "most" of the visions were things he saw. So some didn't happen and were just things he feared would happen. I figure the Stormfather is the one making the adjustments to make up for Dalinar's deviations, but I don't think that makes that reliability of the narrator any better. The Stormfather has already shown that he isn't aware of things that happen inside and he has his own fears that are probably coloring the way he presents the visions. I just think we need to be careful with taking the visions as factual depictions of what actually happened. That is unless we know which visions are the ones that Honor actually witnessed as we see them.

There is a certain interesting comparison between the KR's breaking their bonds and the Parshmen being cut off from their forms. I could see a few possibilities if there is a connection. One possibility is that the KR abandoned their spren after learning what happened to the Parshmen. My problem with this is that some orders seem like they might have had a much more understanding view of forcibly cutting the Parshmen off. Now this could work if they were forced into the decision. The way I could see that working is if there was an honorable agreement to limit each others numbers. Then many of the KR would be forced to abandon their oaths once the Parshmen were so drastically reduced. Another possibility is that the KR intentionally abandoned their oaths to cause the Parshmen to get cut off. The only problem is that I see this being pretty hard to pitch to some orders. Although, it could be an interesting explanation for what happened to the missing shardblades. By that I mean that most of the KR spren might have been used to break the Parshmen, so those are the missing blades. You could even see the dead blades around now as an indicator of those that took dullform to avoid what was coming. The last possibility is that while the two are correlated one didn't cause the other. So the Bondsmiths do something and as a result bonded spren get killed, both from the Knights and Parshmen. The Knights then drop their screaming blades and the Parshmen are forced into slaveform. Although even with all that said, I still think it's probably most likely that there isn't a connection and the two events took place at vastly different times.

I have this nagging feeling that shardplate is going to wind up having something to do with Cultivation. Mainly due to how it can be regrenerated. I swear I remember a quote where they talk about needing to regrow a broken set, but I'm not having any luck finding it during lunch.

I realized after I wrote that that I hadn't been terribly clear. You can reform the plate from one piece, but if you have more pieces you have an easier time. The main point is that plate doesn't really seem to need to be bonded in any way remotely similar to blades. All that seems to be required is possession of a part and stormlight. Personally, while I like the follower spren creating the plate idea, I think the way the plate is formed is a big hurdle for that theory to overcome. I would expect the plates and blades to be connected more strongly if the blade spren was the one who created the plate.

You have to have the majority of the plate to reform it. The books state that if someone takes a broken part they can try to reform the whole kit, but they won't be successful if you have more pieces and are reforming just the missing bit.

I find it interesting that all that is said about the rear endsheet is what we already knew about it being an in world stained glass window. Makes me wonder how important its revelation has to be. It's always confounded me that the front endsheet was methodically worked out and the rear endsheet hasn't been. Even when there are so many good questions. Is it depicting some listener forms? Does it show something about creating fabrials? I think one "order" symbol looks like a crab, so are they all depicting greatshells or possibly creatures with gemhearts? Hopefully we will get something in the next book that relieves this obsession of mine.

That would explain a lot. When did we learn that or is it just the best current guess. I still like a combination of an Intent and insanity to explain their behavior. Maybe the Intents/Divine Attributes were somehow part of the Oathpact? If so the Intent should still effect them, even as cognitive shadows, right?

Do we know that putting down the blade broke their link to it? I know they aren't like the bonds between spren and knights and they seemed to think that putting down the blades would work, but I'd always figured there was more to the connection than just who is physically holding the blade. Especially since I can't think of another reason for them to have lived so long.

Not Splinters in the traditional sense - they are pieces of Honor's soul, which we understand to mean Honor's investiture made physical. Tanavastium, as it were. Wouldn't that still mean that they should have intents? I have no idea what would happen when an intent is interpreted by someone that went insane. That could be the cause of the discrepancy between the heralds that seem to be obsessed with their attribute and those that seem to have taken a polar opposite interpretation.

This makes me wonder if the Honorblades have "intents" that correspond to the Divine Attributes. They would then slowly pull the holder towards an interpretation of that intent in the same way that we've seen with Shards. I thought that at some point we'd been told that the Honorblades were splinters, but I can't find the reference. If they are splinters then they would have intents. My only pause is that Healing doesn't seem like it would be an intent from Honor. Have we ever learned if Cultivation put anything in to the creation of the Honorblades or the Oathpack? If she did, then that might explain those intents that seem like they would come from a splinter of her. If even parts of this are true, then we could expect the obsession focus of some Heralds. They have been under the influence of that intent for such a long period of time that they should have been pulled pretty far. It could even explain the twisted interpretations if they have been trying to reject the intent strongly enough for so long as well.

The topic has definitely waxed and waned, but I'm sure it'll snap back any time now.

RR is one of those shows that seemed like it had existed forever when I was young. I'm not sure that I have a favorite episode, but I still remember being amazed and a little disappointed by the Star Trek episode. I think that was the first time I saw special effects explained, and I was really sad to learn that the doors weren't real. I knew all the high tech stuff was fake, but I didn't think the doors would be a couple of plywood sheets that were hand opened and closed. On a side note the Kickstarter is now past 3 million, that's a million a day. Sometimes I wonder if I'm in the right profession.

I'm going to take a shot in the dark and assume that a fan site to an author is going to have a person or two who likes to read. If I am correct and you do exist, I wonder what your opinion is on the Reading Rainbow Kickstarter? I think it's great, I loved the show as a kid and think all kids should be encouraged to read. My one concern is that I think the app's subscription is priced a bit high at $10 a month. For those that don't know Reading Rainbow is a kids show that ran from 1983 to 2006. It was hosted by LeVar Burton and was intended to encourage children to read. After cancellation by PBS the show was bought by Burton's company RRKIDZ who turned it into an iTunes app. They have now started a fundraising drive through Kickstarter in order to expand the app into a web based program that will have special support for educators who want to use the material in their classrooms. The drive started on May 28, 2014 and raised their initial goal of 1 million dollars in under twelve hours. They are now working on their first stretch goal of 5 million dollars, which will increase the number of schools that receive the program for free as well as insure that the program is able to be ported to a variety of other devices. If this has piqued your interest and you want to know more check out the link below. But you don't have to take my word on it... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/readingrainbow/bring-reading-rainbow-back-for-every-child-everywh

Those are probably the more likely explanations, but I think they were all proposed before learning that Aluminum had other cosmere wide properties. It could be that shardplate is a fabrial that creates aluminum armor. The creation of the aluminum drains some stormlight, but when it's done it might act like investiture insulation. Where the stormlight inside can't leak out, and outside investiture has trouble sticking. The only problem I can think of, is that the oddities of aluminum might make it hard to do some of the exosuit type tricks of which fully powered plate should be capable. I hate being stuck between two thoughts, so hopefully someone can provide a WoB or other information that can resolve the question.