Walker

Joshua's agent has a twitter post that Nielsen Bookscan just released numbers and Oathbringer is #1 in Hardcover last week.

Totaling eBook, audio and print, over both UK and the US, preliminary numbers show that 300,000 copies were sold last week.

Why wouldn't the reference frame of the two span reeds be the span reeds themselves?  One span reed is the fixed origin with an orientation representing up/forward.  The position and orientation of the other span reed is in relation to this origin.  Uniform translations to them both have no effect on the frame. 

This is the standard reference frame for pairing objects in computer graphics/simulations.

Brandon just posted a snippet on Reddit in honor of his birthday that confirms a Rock POV.  This could be a one-time phenomenon, much like the Sadeas POV in WoR.  But this makes me wonder whether on not Rock is now one of the characters on the famous chart.

12 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

This is a part of the reason why I think Szeth will end up being the one who ends up defeating Odium, or at least, play a pivotal role in his defeat. Despite me rooting for Kaladin pulling through (mostly because I love Syl and don't want her to die), I do think it'd be a better story if Kaladin proved the Stormfather right by succumbing to his Hatred, thus becoming Odium's Champion, rather than Honor's.

Seth is the closest embodiment of Odium's Champion that we have ever seen.  His hatred in WoR was so complete that he hated himself.  Remember that Shards are an embodiment of an ideal.  Odium cannot hate other people but have joy in causing them harm.

Several people are unhappy that there are so many radiants in the Kholin family (except maybe Adolin; sorry maxal).  However, there is an interesting reveal in Edgedancer that gives a possible reason for this.

Nalan states that his reasoning for killing radiants is to keep them from grouping together.  When left alone, radiants naturally group together, perhaps at the behest of your spren.

Suppose you are a spren from the Cognitive looking for someone to bind to.  You realize that to succeed, you will need to join up with other bonded spren.  But you also see that proto-radiants are being killed off before they can join with others.  Your natural inclination will be to bond someone in a group of already existing radiants, so that there is no danger of you being isolated.  More importantly, you are going to pick as high-profile a person as possible so that attempts on that person's life will not be easy.

Hence, the Kholins.

I think this is just a 'translation' thing. We have very witty characters who would have used puns in their own language. The only way to represent that in an English book is to make the puns in English, then either waving your arms and saying the pun works in both languages, or say that it was really a slightly different pun in the original language, but it was changed in the 'translation' to English, so that the story works.

In many cases, this explanation would work.  But Brandon REALLY breaks this in Stormlight with the mis-Jasnah-ist pun.  There is no way for that to be a translation.  Unless, that is, the name Jasnah is something of meaning that you would translate.

Does anyone know anything about this new Stormlight Novella?  It has appeared at 1% on the progress meter on Brandon's page.

I am pretty sure that Kaladin will find his father tending to the wounded in the manor, soon after the scene in the posted chapter.  But Kaladin will not stay in Hearthstone for long.  There is no safety there; it is a death trap.  We may get one chapter of shout-outs to familiar characters, but the story will move on.

I think it is clear that he is being set up for a journey bringing the survivors to Kholinar (with the possibility of opening up the Oathgate). He will pick up numerous survivors from other communities, building up a huge mass of refugees.  He will find even more refugees piling up outside the gates of Kholinar (because that is exactly where all the people in the surrounding areas will go) and take charge of them as well. He will have to stop the rioting in Kholinar and get everyone to work together for survival.

In order to pull all this off, he will say at least one of the leadership oaths (he has already said the protecting oaths).

Regardless of the state of his parents, I am 100% convinced that Kaladin's story in the next book is him leading a wagon train of refugees (from Hearthstone and numerous towns on the way) to Kohlinar. When he gets there, his challenge will be to open the portal.

This is the only meaningful way he can protect all these people. Furthermore, we are pretty sure his last two oaths are leadership related. He has both the leadership challenges of organizing all thos people AND stopping the riots against the Empress.

So I have read the changes. I am ambivalent either way.  I understand about wanting to make Kaladin a protector other than a killer. 

But if that is the goal, the part of the story most incongruous with Kaladin the Protector is not the fight.  It is before the fight.

 

 

“You sent him to the sky to die, assassin," Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his lips, "but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.”

That line is the part of the story that feels most anti-Kaladin.  That is a statement of vengeance rather than protection.  And it appears to be unchanged in the revisions.

While it will probably not going to happen in this book, the most useful thing Shallan could do is use Lightweaving to infiltrate Mr. Ts organization.  Once Szeth hits Urithiru, he will spill the beans on his old employer, and this infiltration will become a priority.

This is not going to happen for one simple reason: Nightblood's personality is completely incompatible with a Bondsmith.

Nightblood wants to kill Evil.  He does not care what chaos ensues from his actions; he just wants to kill it.  If Dalinar is trying to unite together men that Nightblood think are Evil, it is time to roll the Ego check against the Intelligent Weapon table.

He is the perfect Skybreaker weapon.  

Galivar is a no-brainer for book 5, as it is Dalinar's book.

I had not thought about a Parshendi for book 4, but if that book remains focused on Eshonai as planned, that makes sense.

I am less sure about the next book. A herald POV is potentially too spoiler for this early in the series.

Kaladin will arrive in town to find most of it in rubble and find his father and mother alive have left the town with their four year old daughter.

The Everstorm just passed the morning of this chapter. If Lirin is still alive, he is currently doing medical triage with the entire town in front of his door.

The climax of WoK was very strong. But I do believe that, for many readers, it set up Kaladin as a traditional power fantasy. This created many expectations that did not line up where Brandon was taking the story.

There was a lot of that right here in this forum before the release.  About how awesome it was going to be when Kaladin confronted Amaram (without thinking about how this would affect his relationship with Dalinar).  About how awesome it was going to be when Kaladin confronted Seth. 

To say that his story arc is a rehash of WoK is just false.  The lessons he learned are completely different.  The WoK was learning about being a leader. His 2nd ideal is an oath that gives him a position of power, the savior role.  In WoR was learning lessons about being a follower, about being subservient. You see this throughout the book as Dalinar castigates Kaladin for lack of respect.  The 3rd is an oath about being bound by responsibility, and not just your personal feelings.  This is not a lesson that Kaladin could learn as a bridgeman, when there was no lower that he could go.

What Kaladin's story lacked is the power that many thought he had gained at the end of WoK (and which he really didn't).  Instead of shifting to an external conflict, his story conflict remained internal. That is the only way in which the two stories are the same.

Something else is up with Jezrien. From the Lift Interlude:
 

He'd been bested, but he didn't seem to care. Not a curse, not even a tightening of the eyes. He stood up and pulled on his gloves by the cuffs, first one and then the other. "Praise Yaezir," he said, "Herald of Kings. May he lead in wisdom. If he ever stops drooling."

Emphasis mine. If Nalan is saying that about Jezrien, this implies there is something very wrong with him.

I said this in another thread.  Taravangian asked for the capacity to save humanity.  Dalinar was tasked by the Almight to defeat Odium.  

These goals are related but they are not identical.

Actually I think he is a really good leader now. What does he still need to learn about leadership?

He can lead Bridge 4 because they were from a similar social class.  He has serious issues with light eyes still.  He needs to be able to cross social boundaries.

The Windrunners ideals are protecting and leadership.  He has come to terms with protecting, but has a long way to go as a leader.  I think the slavery scars will disappear as part of that process.

There is a major difference between Taravangian and Dalinar. Taravangian is working to save humanity. Dalinar is tasked to defeat Odium.  These are not the same goals.

This is also why Hoid is mentioned explicitly in the Diagram as a problem.  Hoid's primary concern is Odium; as he mentioned to Dalinar, he will see this world burn if he has to in order to succeed.

Dalinar's role is to be straddle between Hoid and Taravangian.  Defeat Odium, but do it in such a way that preserves as much humanity as possible.  I suspect that he will save less than Taravangian could. But survival is meaningless if Odium rules the Cosmere.

Since there are 10 kingdoms, that led me to think that maybe the other gates are each locked to a specific order. Do we have any idea how kingdoms and orders lined up in the era of the Silver Kingdoms?

That doesn't track. All Vorin names of the Heralds are symmetrical (the letter h is kinda like a wildcard; Jezerezeh or Pailiah). There is no reason for Chan-a-rach to break the pattern that the other nine Heralds form. I am pretty confident Chanaranach is the Vorin name.

In most languages, "ch" is a single phonetic sound and so should be considered a single letter.  There is another example in WoR that I am forgetting right now that was a perfect palindrome except for "th", which made it clear that Brandon is thinking of these palindromes phonetically.

This means the only problem with Chan-a-rach is the relationship between the "n" and the "r". Both are sonorants, with the primary difference being that "n" is nasal, while "r" is not.  Hence the pairing looks to be similar to a forced rhyme.

How do you mean? Aren't all people partially in the Cognitive realm to an extent?

Lift can touch Wyndle without his consent. He remarks on this and says that she is partially in the Cognitive Realm.  By this, I think he means that her Physical manifestation has become partially Cognitive.

Lift is partially in Cognitive Realm.  That makes her a potential outlier for whatever theory we might come up with.

Here is one possible secret that I could imagine leading to the KRs abandoning their oaths.

The KRs are modeled after the Heralds; what if they share in their fate?  So once a KR dies, it is sent to Odium for torture.

If the KRs knew that, and that the Heralds were no longer willing to bear that burden as well, I could see them giving up.