Walker

Graves' specific quote is While he may not have originally focused on keeping Kaladin away, this did become his primary focus.

The timeline of the Taravangian interlude is somewhat puzzling. In this interlude, Taravangian discovers that one of the bridgemen is a radiant. He then instructs sleepers to do what they can to separate this man (Kaladin) from Dalinar so that Szeth can strike. Indeed, we learn that this is exactly what Graves was trying to do with the assassination plot. However, the introduction to Graves is in a chapter before the interlude. So either the Taravangian interlude actually happened before that chapter, or Graves changed his mission objective to include Kaladin later. I am inclined to believe the interlude is out of order, and takes place before the initial Graves chapter. What do others think?

So the interesting question is: does that restriction apply to squires as well? Could Rlain/Shen become one of his squires?

Which is not the same as saying that a curve has logarithmic behavior. But I understand what you are saying.

To follow up from my previous post, the use of logarithms in the Taravangian interlude shows that they are not advanced in mathematics. Logarithms do not have a bump in the middle. The ardent is trying to describe a normal-like distribution. This is only like a logarithm at the tails, because the higher-order derivatives match up there. But it is nothing like a logarithm in the middle. This is exactly how you would expect a society that did not have probability (a very recent invention) try to explain the long tail phenomenon.

It might have a different base; I doubt they use natural logarithm. But the sketch of the graph, including derivatives and asymptotes, is structurally the same across bases. And that is all they are using it for in the Taravangian discussion. A lot of these math concepts go back to the Greeks. They were just much more informal back then. It was not until we got the Cartesian plane that we started formalizing a lot of them. But none of the math in this book looks like it is much beyond Greek/Ancient Chinese/Vedic Astrology level.

The tricky thing with Nightblood is that he is very different than Roshar magic. To someone that did not know Warbreaker, they might have thought that Nalan just gave Szeth a spren in sword form. In explaining Nightblood, the series is going to have to go very Cosmere. With that said, that is not the same as requiring you to read the other books. It just means that it will have to be addressed within the series. I understand problems with the other books. Brandon was not particularly good with characterization in the early novels; WOT helped a lot with that (yes, Matt was way off, but I thought the rest of his work was fine -- certainly better than books 9-11). In fact, if you read the early Szeth chapters on his website (which are horrible), you can see just how far he has come.

I suspect we will see this in the next book, once Kaladin hits Kholinar. Remember that the riots are related to the corrupt ardents.

Lighteyes probably thought just like Sadeas: it was all Adolin with some help by Kaladin. What Darkeyes think doesn't matter. They were already telling fantastical stories about him.

Hoid's farewell to Dalinar suggests he has the Gandalf problem. He has a lot of power, but if he uses it then Odium/Sauron will know where he is and curb stomp him.

I don't think Syl wants anybody to get the Honoblade. She most certainly will not put up with one of Kaladin's squires getting the Honorblade.

I do not think the fourth oath has to do with protecting. The properties of the Windrunners are protecting and leading. I think the latter two oaths have to do with leading. We know that squires are an important feature of Windrunners, and think many of his future powers are going to be squire-related. Hence leading.

I think Nazh is the mysterious ardent in Chapter 31. The one that Rock shoos away because he is sketching bridgemen while they eat at the fire.

Sorry, that is not what I meant. If you look at CopperMind, someone claims "I will bring men together" is the Third Ideal. Meaning that "I will unite instead of divide" and "I will bring men together" are two different oaths.

I have a meta-reaction. A reaction to the reactions. I am very unhappy with the people that think Brandon has become Jordan and is "unwilling" to kill off major characters. First of all, character death has too often become a cheap gimmick for character growth. You kill character A so that character B will grow and improve. But there are things you can do other than death than are far more powerful. Exhibit A: Hobber. Bridge 4 has become the go-to for character deaths. We have even had characters more significant than Hobber die. But what happened to Hobber is more powerful than any of the other Bridge 4 deaths. I also think that Moash getting away (and immediately regretting his decision) is more powerful than if Kaladin killed him. It is the losses to factors other than death that are having the most emotional impact. Another reason for character death is to show how high the stakes are. But that is the problem: all of the main characters have superpowers and Odium has not even pulled out the A team yet. It makes absolutely no sense for any of these characters to have their lives threatened in any way; no one other than Szeth is a credible threat. The lives of loved-ones, yes. But if those deaths are going to be meaningful, that means they have to be characters that we have already know. In other words, Bridge 4. See above. There are only two main character deaths that could have possibly made sense in this novel: Adolin and Szeth. Adolin precisely because he is not currently or becoming superpowered (as far as we know). But he is important to Shallan's story, and her story is not ready for his death yet. Which leaves Szeth. Bringing back Szeth is the one act that does feels like Jordan; it feels like the constant resurrection of the Forsaken. The problem with that was not the resurrection itself. It was that Jordan did it such a lazy way. Characters did not really grow or change when they were brought back. Szeth's resurrection was clearly different, and I am willing to see where it goes before I pass judgement. If there are no deaths by the time the Unmade are all revealed, I am willing to start complaining. But not before.

Except that the reference was in a leadership position so it really looks like it should be the General. If this is legitimate, this is really confusing writing. You have three different people with somewhat similar names.

It may just be that the sword was the primary martial weapon for the pre-Recreance KR. Since the Recreance, humans have advanced significantly in their fighting tactics and styles. In the midnight essence vision, the KR are completely unfamiliar with Dalinar's fighting stance, even though it is (now) a codified form. So the varied weapons may be a new thing, as we have knights that were not trained according to the old fighting styles.

This is indeed a very good question. I wonder if this is a Cryptic/Honorspren difference.

I am puzzled why you would say this. The book outright says this is an oath. There is a sentence in the book that explicitly calls this the Second Ideal of the Knights Radiant. Also, Kaladin claims that Stormlight usage is easier after this oath. This is a completely different oath. The entire point of Kaladin's internal conflict in WOR is how different this oath is; otherwise he is just protecting people he likes. Besides, Syl did not come back when he said the previous oath (he respoke the first two oaths while confronting Moash). He had to say this new, third oath to regain her. The real ambiguity for the number of oaths is Dalinar. I see that Coppermind is claiming that he actually said two different oaths at the end of Words of Radiance, when it sounded like one to me.

Actually, Kaladin does share some information with Dalinar, but gets nothing to show for it (at first). Class divisions are real, and they explain most of the communication problems.

General Khal is demoted to Captain on pg. 1029 (which is really confusing because his name is so close to Kaladin's nickname).

One of the more interesting features was that Bridge 4 can now use Stormlight, even though they have not said the oaths. This is possibly a power of Kaladin's. His order is Protecting/Leading, but his oaths are are protection-only so far. I think that his later oaths may be about leading, and allow him to transfer powers to his troops.

I learned this lesson about Amazon with a WOT release years ago. They are happy to take all the prelease orders that people want to make, but they are not guaranteed to be able to satisfy all of them. That would be okay if later orders got a warning about waiting time, but they do not tell you they delayed shipping time until a few days before release. Never, ever order a prelease from Amazon. Cancel your order and get it somewhere else. As long as they have not shipped, you can cancel.

This is not a problem with eBooks per se. They could perfectly support high resolution format. This is a problem with Amazon's near monopoly on eBooks. The Kindle format is specifically limited to low resolution images. I find that books from Apple have higher resolution images. Not great, but still better than Amazon.

Even though it has been a few days, I want to return to this quote: The consensus is that this it the Stormfather talking to Syl. While I agree that the speaker is the Stormfather (the voice is correct), I was never happy with the idea that he was talking to Syl. My reason is simple: Syl is not a viewpoint character and this voice sounds like someone addressing a viewpoint character. That by itself is not a strong argument. But after thinking about this a lot more, I have a pretty compelling theory. This is the Stormfather talking to Shallan. Remember the Stormfather scene from WoK. Kaladin is traveling the high storm and seeing scenes about the world. He particularly sees scenes related to the Interludes (e.g. Szeth). The Stormfather responds to what Kaladin is seeing. This is Shallan's book. If she rides the high storms, she may also see scenes related to the interludes. In particular, she will see Darkness. And because she has the greatest "crimes" of any viewpoint character, the Stormfather will tell her that Darkness is coming for her. So what about "Little Traitor"? It is a nickname, just like "Child of Tanvast". Besides, she is a traitor: to the Ghostbloods.