Chrono

Szeth had rarely been used as an assassin before he was sent after Gavilar. Sure, he had the Shardblade, but he mentions that killing Gavilar was the worst act of murder he had yet committed. Flash forward five years, and he's being sent off to kill almost every single world leader alive. Szeth has to learn to get better in order to succeed, mainly because of the tight security these world leaders have. He's forced to learn on the job the best ways to kill heavily armed and dangerous bodyguards, mercenaries, security, and whatever else they can throw at him. He's also failed at killing Dalinar once. Now that he kind of knows what he's going up against, he's not going to hold back.

Nan Balat either reduced his cremling-torture habit or he simply was more covert about it, I think. He probably didn't want Eylita to notice his habit, and in one scene, Shallan goes to find him and steps on a bunch of cremling corpses. He probably had a major relapse (if I remember correctly, it was just after Daddy Davar killed his axehound litter). Either way, notice how everyone in the Davar family has issues. Nan Balat has violent urges. Tet Wikim is very quiet and reserved, with severe depression (thoughts of suicide). Asha Jushu has a chronic gambling problem. Shallan has memory repression issues. These are all well known and common ways of either distracting or suffering from serious abuse. Really, I'm surprised none of them have delved into substance abuse yet. Also, I'm betting Nan Helaran had some problems too. This is not a very happy family, after all.

I always figured that Death Rattle talked about Nalan and him going around killing surgebinders.

I'm fully aware of that. But his plaque certainly makes him "sound" humble and noble. There's a lot of "Look what I've done for you. I'm sorry I can't do more." But then he follows that right up with, "Oh, and you need to stop rebelling, because I obviously know what is best for you. Isn't this system I've made perfect?" Rashek wasn't ever really humble, but the tone of his plaque varies wildly paragraph by paragraph. He's benevolent and loving (I wish I could do more, this is all I'm able to do to help you) and then suddenly judgmental and arrogant (Why do these people rebel?). This is dichotomy that I'm talking about.

The Lord Ruler displayed plenty of signs of being mentally unstable. One need only look at the plaque underneath the Canton of Resource in Fadrex City to see proof of this. He waffles back and forth between being the humble hero who's done everything for his people and the arrogant god figure. Having Ruin grind against your brain for over a thousand years can't be good for your mental health. Heck, when Vin goes up against him, he sounds exhausted more than anything else. Ruin's been wearing away at him for centuries; he easily could have influenced him to take more risks.

LOLz, this made me laugh so hard. Please make more!

With the whole Highprince Politics thing, Sadeas' supporters have a huge weapon to use against Dalinar if foul play is suspected (and considering he got a knife through the eye, it'd take a brainless stick not to suspect foul play... no offense to the Stick). They could easily pin it up on him and claim, "Well now, Mr. Dalinar, if you're so high and mighty, how come your obvious enemy and thorn in your side is dead the second he was alone?" Cue massive investigation, rival factions, and all sorts of trouble. I can see a whole Adolin character arc where he has to deal with his father taking the blame for something he did. Heck, it could even turn him into a KR! As for Kaladin and him learning to write, he seemed to be in a real hurry leaving Urithiru, so I'm afraid he won't have the time to break gender norms. He could learn how to read and write from his mother in Hearthstone, though, and grab a spanreed and board while trying to make sense of the craziness that is Kholinar right now. However, you all are right: Kaladin needs to be able to communicate with people, if only to report on the situation in Kholinar. As for the leadership thing, I can definitely see Kaladin becoming leader of a fledgling group of Windrunners. It'd be a nice extension of his divine attributes, and he's still got a lot to learn about leadership. However, I see Dalinar as kind of the leader of the KR as a whole. Kaladin will have a lot of influence and Dalinar will listen to and respect his authority, but when push comes to shove, Dalinar can still give Kaladin orders and reasonably expect him to follow them. Same with Shallan. As for Shallan, I expect her to do great things. She'll struggle with how to keep her identity with so many fake ones she has to keep up, and she'll have to keep her cool as she progresses farther and farther into the Ghostbloods. She'll work with Dalinar, but I see her as being a lone wolf for the time being. She still has a million things to sort through, as evidenced by her reveal at the end of the book. Hopefully she and Pattern will be able to work together again. The cultural aspects of Lighteyes and Darkeyes are steeped in tradition that is around four thousand years old. Things aren't going to break down that quickly, I'm afraid. However, with the chaos, those sorts of prejudices may begin to recede. It's not suddenly going to become a complete social breakdown, with darkeyes ordering everyone around and lighteyes becoming basic infantry. However, equalization certainly could happen. It'd be interesting to see how the world reacts. The rest, I pretty much agree with.

"The one with Color walks here where he should not be. The words he speaks are foreign to me, and the voice he once heard has long since left him. Oh Almighty, why did he lose such evil?" - An Alethi Soldier of Highprince Aladar's camp, 12 Seconds Pre-Death. Subject was suffering from the Iriali Wasting Sickness. Subject held a long history of drinking and paranoia of foreigners.

To me, Shallan's lies basically represent part of who she is. Note that the Lightweavers didn't believe in sole unvarnished truth- they were also pretty dang good liars. Shallan's a compulsive liar, but she has good reason to be, noting her traumatic childhood and the really hairy situations she's gotten into during the course of WoR. I first really started to like Shallan when she started drawing pictures of a woman in all sorts of different situations, then added her own face to them. Why? Because I believe that that sort of thing can become true. Shallan begins to see what being a Lightweaver is all about: weaving such a good lie that it becomes truth. Her personas when dealing with other people did not seem fake to me; rather, they seemed to be different parts of herself. She notes before meeting Dalinar for the first time that if she had not been raised in an abusive household, this is the woman she might have become, so she'll be that woman. I find that an excellent example of what I'm talking about. All in all, I am completely fine with Shallan reinventing herself, so long as she remains grounded to her true personality. However, I'm sure that if she tried to completely detach from herself, her bond with Pattern would wither and die, so I think we're good on that ground. Also, kaellok, I am apparently one of those rare people who loved both Kaladin's and Shallan's character arcs. They were both amazing and realistic depictions on how to deal with significant trauma. I'm glad that we can all choose to respectfully disagree.

I really like your Shallan! Very nice depiction of her at the beginning of tWoK. I've got to bust out my sketchpad and see what I can draw with Shallan.

Last comment is something I kind of wanted Dalinar to do to Sadeas all during WoR. Really badly. EDIT: Also, I really like your Wit. That's how I imagined him.

I'm not thinking that Moash is going to be a Surgebinder anytime soon. His rep sheet has too many problems on it. Frankly, it wasn't the whole "plot to kill Elhokar" thing that dismissed the idea, it's that he was willing to kill Kaladin to achieve his goal. I'm pretty sure the Knights Radiant, no matter what order, would frown on that sort of thing. You don't want people killing their comrades on the field just because they're getting in your way. Now, if they were actually doing something wrong, like that one KR in one of the Words of Radiance epigraphs, that's justified. Moash was not justified in nearly killing Kaladin. Going by a legal sense, what Moash did would be a greater crime than what Adolin did. To me, Moash is worse, and for the reason above. I highly doubt that Adolin would try and kill Renarin, for example, if he suddenly showed up and demand that he stop. Even if Kaladin showed up and tried to interfere, Adolin could have gained back control of himself and stopped. Moash was past feeling at that point and didn't care. He showed remorse afterwards, but that doesn't really excuse it.

I am a stick, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a stick not entitled to worship in the Church however he chooses? "No!" says the Highprince. "It must worship by fighting and combat." "No," says the Vorin man, "it must worship the Almighty." "No," says the Flamebringer, "for a stick should become fire!" I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... THE CHURCH OF THE STICK. A religion where the branches would not fear the flame. Where the tree would not be bound by the will of the Flamebringers. Where the great sticks would not be constrained by the will of the the smaller sticks. And with your worship, the Church of the Stick can become your form of worship as well. -- The Stick, Lord and Ruler over our Holy Church

Stormlight. Stormlight is my favorite inanimate object because it's not an object. It's a force... *Makes stupid whooshing sound*

As for stuff on the Dustbringers, Shallan mentions in her spiel about the KR that there were some that could "melt stone with a touch." Sounds to me either a manifestation of the Division surge or manipulation of the Abrasion surge. You take your bet, but I'll eat my leather longcoat if that phrase doesn't describe the Dustbringers.

I always assumed that Nale's repression of emotion came with the psychological and physical torture between desolations. If you don't feel anything, then you can't feel pain. When he talks to Szeth, he says that he will teach him the path of one uncorrupted by sentiment. Nale's had to deal with the weight of breaking the Oathpact for thousands of years. Carrying that sort of guilt makes you dead on the inside.

For me, exhaustionspren and creationspren would be my top two. I draw a lot and study a lot, so they'd probably love to hang around me. Really, it would just depend on how tired I am that day.

Okay, you got me on the "hands and knees begging" part. I didn't look up the chapter until after I posted. I apologize for bringing erroneous information into the discussion. Now that I understand what your argument is, I have a main point to make. You say that it's unfair that Dalinar didn't tell Kaladin about his plan. I admit to Kaladin, that is unfair. However, Dalinar has seen evidence that Kaladin becomes unpredictable when around Amaram. It's the entire reason why he's in prison in the first place. Who is to say that Kaladin won't go off again or otherwise foul up the plan if Dalinar told him? Kaladin has already come close to killing him. The truth is, he's extremely unstable when it comes to Amaram. If anything, he's being kept out of the loop for his own safety. Dalinar has also been shown to play things close to the chest. He told no one of his plan except Navani and maybe a few trusted generals. He obviously respects Kaladin and acknowledges his pain, but he can't have this plan screw up. If people find out that he is trying to expose Amaram, it looks very suspiciously like a conspiracy to discredit him and get him falsely executed. The fact that Amaram is allied under Sadeas's banner only makes it worse: now he's undermining political opponents. He can't have that kind of bad publicity, not when he's trying to unite Alethkar. If Dalinar gets a scandal on his hands this late in the game, he's finished politically. If Kaladin was informed, he could be a detriment to the plan and expose it through no fault of his own. In short, it comes down to Dalinar wanting to do this by himself and thinking of his political career. He certainly respects Kaladin and he says as much to him in his second visit. It's just that Kaladin has proved himself to be a liability when it comes to Amaram. He can't have this sort of thing blow up in his face.

The only foreshadowing for Szeth's survival is the fact that he gets another book, and that we've seen those massive healing fabrials before: in one of Dalinar's visions, carried by a Knights Radiant. At first, I was extremely suspicious when Szeth came back, but when Nale put the fabrial away, I was satisfied. There was barely any foreshadowing in text about his survival, but I've seen successful plot twists happen on far less.

Kaladin had just botched a political maneuver that had taken months of effort and dueling on Adolin's part to orchestrate. Knowing ahead of time what the maneuver was. Perhaps Dalinar could have kept his cool and explained the situation to him if Kaladin was unaware, but Kaladin knew. Having someone you know and trust in front of almost everyone you know and respect completely butcher your plan like that knowingly tends to make people angry. Yes, Kaladin saved his son. And Dalinar takes that into heavy consideration when he's dealing with Amaram. But in the moment, just after Dalinar has practically gotten down on his knees and begged to Elhokar to spare Kaladin's life, Kaladin talked back, and rather rudely at that. He basically sassed his boss just after he'd saved his life. I'd start screaming at him too. Now, Dalinar's not a saint. He's not, straight up. He's got a lot of learning to do, and he's made several mistakes throughout both books. He's growing. But I don't think he should be offering an apology to Kaladin for doubting him when he went above and beyond the line of duty to get Amaram convicted. Imagine one of your employees suddenly comes up to you and accuses your best friend, who you know beyond a shadow of a doubt to be an honorable and upstanding citizen, of homicide. If I was Dalinar, I wouldn't even investigate. He does, and he finds seventeen men to prove his best friend innocent. We don't know what Dalinar was thinking in that moment where he told Kaladin he was wrong, but it probably was not "This man is lying to get himself to look important." It was more like "He has serious emotional baggage, probably from war, and he maybe is just a little confused about where it came from." But then, Kaladin saves Adolin and Renarin. So once again, Dalinar has to come back to a case that he closed. A case that he closed because he doesn't want another trusted friend to be a murderer. He's already had this happen to him with Sadeas; he probably doesn't want it to ever happen again. But he investigates anyway, and sets up a rather convoluted way of doing it, which takes a lot of work and actively lying to his best friend. And then, it turns out to be right. In either case, Kaladin should be thanking Dalinar, not the other way around. I know that if I had just convicted my own best friend of murder to help out a familiar but otherwise distant employee and he expected an apology, I'd be insulted. The situation wasn't perfect, but neither are Dalinar and Kaladin. The fact is, Dalinar chose to investigate further when he didn't have to and he certainly didn't want to. That's what Kaladin is thanking him for.

We're going to see a marriage ceremony soon? The ships are going to explode with this! Personally, I think it's Navani and Dalinar.

If anyone's interested in a good read, I'd suggest A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula LeGuinn (I think that's how you spell her name). I've never read the book, but don't shoot me down yet! My friend, who is much more of a realistic/historical fiction reader, loves it. And she usually doesn't care for fantasy. In her words, it's like sitting around a campfire and listening to an old man telling a great story. The prose is fantastic and it's definitely a good book.

I always assumed that Shallan's parents were not the best role models of a good marriage even before this whole surgebinding thing popped up. Even something as simple as one of the parents not supporting the child can be enough to cause trauma or emotional hurt. Shallan often talks about her mother in the same manner as her father. She "loved" them. In her dream, she talks about how her mother would teach her how to draw. Her mother, even before she started to hate Shallan, could simply have not been emotionally involved in the relationship. That could easily attract a spren. I think that the bond was rather strong before Shallan killed her mother. She described drawing Pattern in the sand in her gardens, seeing him in the rocks, and playing with a shimmering pattern of light as a child. To a mother who already was emotionally detached from her child, that looks an awful lot like something dangerous and forbidden according to Vorinism (it wasn't especially kind when it came to the Knights Radiant). When Shallan had to face the truth that her mother wanted to kill her, she made Pattern into a Shardblade. I believe we also have Word of Brandon that Shallan is farther along in her Knight Radianthood than Kaladin is.