Kersplattle

Just wanted to add that I don’t think that Jasnah et al actually want to kill all of the Parshmen, they want to kill the voidbringers. That they believe that Parshmen = voidbringers appears now to be a mistake, Parshmen may become voidbringers, but aren’t automatically so. Recall too that the Parshendi are effectively Parshmen + spren, so there is a reason for the KR spren to be involved in the Recreance as well, that is, to participate in it. This is just a fairly casual theory, just that I have often wondered what could be a sufficiently dreadful secret to cause the Recreance, some sort of absolute betrayal seems needed, and maybe wholesale slavery of a people fits that bill. But who knows what the in-world ethics of this are. In a novel, in-world ethics does not have to equal real world ethics. As we appear to understand it, the Alethi are a very warlike people, yet they are, in world, expected to be that way as they are the fighting vanguard needed to regain their former place of habitation. As I see it, there is no shame or negative ethical attribution to the war-like nature of the Alethi, their world puts that burden on them.

I am just wondering if the Recreance is related to the Parshmen. What if the KR’s found that they were complicit in suppressing the “humanity”of (nearly) an entire race and that this was the cost of suppressing the desolation’s. Would they find this sufficiently abhorrent I wonder to agree to dissolve their bonds. That is, on finding that they can’t force the nations to fo go their ultra-useful slaves,they refuse to enforce the suppression. This is giving Kaladin a way to work around this, as a “child of honour” he and his order might find it harder than most to enforce slavery. If he successfully negotiated with the Parshendi he has met to forbear from being “voidbringers” by refusing to bond voidspren maybe he can avoid this and we have a way out of the desolation cycle and a way to strike at Odium ? This has been an idea for a while, but received, to my mind, some backing from this revelation that the Parshemn don’t automatically becom voidbringers. To me, that’s a huge reveal. Everyone in the story to date has assumed that they would, or appears to, even Nale and the Stormfather.

This was of course in the process of a re-read. But I think people are still under estimating what happened. Sure Adolin fought several, all 4 at one point, but we've seen battle scenes of what happens when non-shardbearers come up against a shardbearer, they basically die, lots of them do. So for one man to go in and not just survive but fight two shardbearers at once at one point, is as I see it just unheard of and should have started a lot of interesting conversations to say the least. Elkohar already basically "liked" Kaladin, remember the "I like the way this one thinks...." when Kaladin meets him for the first time. And the duel against "He assassin in white". Dali are suspects he's a proto-radiant, maybe the idea of that is just too far fetched for others to think along the same lines. Or maybe the rather ambivalent memories of the knights gets in the way. Hard to know, be interesting to ask Brandon what the aftermath of that duel was, in a way we don't get much of it because Kaladin was locked away.

One thing that has always puzzled me a little, is that more is not made of the last duel where Kaladin goes into the arena to help and succeeds in fighting several shard bearers although without any shards himself. He is duelling with two of them at one point is he not ? It always struck me that this should have been a huge sensation, in that society Shardbearers were almost unbeatable by non-shardbearers under any circumstances. And here's a dark-eyes with just a spear fighting, and winning. Actually, for part of the fight, with just the haft of a spear. Even though Kaladin is imprisoned at the end of the duel for his presumption in challenging Amaram, his performance should have been the absolute talk of the camps. There seems to be little of that afterwards, little recognition about just how extraordinary his performance was and how it potentially upsets a lot of presumptionS.

Isn't there a WOB that we've met all (or most) of the Heralds already ? I may be misremembering but if so, this is a probable discovery. I like this theory of Lisa as Chana, it solves or provides a possible solution to a number of little mysteries. It seems to beggar belief a little that there are many stray shardblades hanging around Kholinar. Little nit-pick though, isn't likely that someone might notice the substitution, the blades are reasonably different in style. And Chana would have at least some motivation for the swap, and the position to do it.

I'd just say that physically, this just about has to be Taln. He is exceptionally strong and inhumanly fast (cf catching the darts blown at Amaram at the end of WoR). He has brief snatches of lucidity and recognition - he recognises Shallan when she uses storm light in his cell and knows what she is. So I go with the theory that this is Taln but he is mentally out of the loop so to speak. He is insane and can't act as a herald. As for what happened to his original honour blade I'm not sure. If Brandon hadn't denied it, I'd have gone with the theory that Hoid purloined it for a reason. Presumably though it is still in Kholinar where it was last known to be, could the Queen have it and be acting strange as a result ? I doubt that the guards would have the sort of authority to grab it themselves though one might have. And who would have another shardblade to replace the honour blade with ? Maybe Jasnah's assassin ? The Queen, I doubt that there are that many untraced shardblades just hanging about in Kholinar. I do wonder if being parted from the sword is part of Taln's problems. With it he at least seemed semi-rational and aware although exceptionally exhausted, maybe completely drained of stormlight ? If it was restored to him could he start to recover ?

Sadly for some of us, 2025-35 for the second 5 book tranche is possibly more than a lifetime away....

Add another K1W1 here, and NZ is sufficiently small you don't need any subdivions.

Argent, I read that part of WoR (comment by Syl) to imply NOT that the power is reduced but that an Honourblade can be used for means that a proper Windrunner sprenblade could not. That is, not that the power is reduced but the freedom of action is. So Kaladin versus Szeth, Kaladin can only wield Syl in ways consonant with his oaths. I think you also make the point about the ends to which the blade can be used, just I don't see the reference to power. The quote (Kindle Edition) is "...With this sword, someone can do what you can, but without the...checks a spren requires" then "This sword gave the assassin power to use Lashings, but it also fed upon his Stormlight. A person who uses this will need far, far more Light than you will. Dangerous levels of it." I read "the checks" as moral ones. I notice that something else that suggests a source of the Herald's "power", Taln is inhumanly quick in intercepting the darts aimed at Amaram, imagine that speed allied to an honourblade. Szeth is noted as being extremely quick to move when fighting, that's probably something else the honourblade gives him, but the Heralds are probably naturally fast as well. I speculate that the Heralds are also naturally always full of Stormlight, so heal from all but immediately mortal wounds rapidly and have unlimited access to their surges etc; or they don't need Stormlight, which sort of amounts to the same thing.

Kind of related, but why isn't anyone out there looking for survivors of the bridge fall, or at least retrieving bodies ? I would have thought that Adolin at least would have made damnation sure to go out and at least retrieve the body of his causal betrothed. It just seems a bit odd that they are left unsought after. Maybe they were searched for but at the fall site, and they let/were chased away were they not. Or am I reading too much into this as well ? Thanks for the feedback, sure, the arrest interfered, but duelling is a highly appreciated art in Alethia, dark-eyed spearman just don't go about competing and surviving against shardbearers; it has to be almost completely unprecedented and arrest or not, the stories surely would exist.

Interesting internal reaction to the book. First I'd say I wasn't helped by the build up and the pre-releases, it made the book hard to start. I first had to skim the first chapters to put them in context, read chapter 7 and take that in, then skim to 13, etc. As a first immediate reaction to finishing the book I was a little disappointed I have to say. The WoK was beautifully crafted and one thing I did like about it was that we knew nothing much about the world (both Roshar and it's cultural milieu) so reading was an act of discovery, and BS I thought did very well not to explain too much so things were revealed slowly. WoR. In contrast has an established world, and with the early Jasnah chapters we get a lot explained, I wonder if it would be better to make Jasnah less knowledgeable, or perhaps wrong in certain areas so the mystery continues and intrigues; but that's more taste than a real criticism. We also get, to my mind, a rather too rapid a development of Shallan, from somewhat unworldly 17 year old to immediate near master of circumstances, I found that transition abrupt. I did like the explanation of how she brought the deserters around, by transformation, that works for me as a device. But the rest is perhaps a bit serendipidous, though I did call the rescue by the Santhid ! Then, more on Shallan, bantering in the King's council chamber in front of the assembled high Princes, again, such a fast transition. Though Shallan's murderous tendencies are also shown, and with the end of book revelation about her mother and father (and I certainly didn't call that, although in mitigation I hadn't foreseen the transition of bonded spren to shardblades applying to Shallan such a long time in the past) there's more to her than is immediately apparent. Shallan and Adolin, I like it. I like Adolin as he develops, more so I have to say than Renarin who is still a bit of a mystery in this book. His remarkable stoicism over handling his shardblade despite the screaming of the temporarily revived spren not withstanding. I feel he has a lot more character development to come. Kaladin's part is dark, the flirtation with the "dark side", the violation of his oaths, all story development and the working out of his hatreds, hard work, not always fun, but very credible. I wonder just how dead Syl was, was she revived or was she just nearly dead and mostly mindless ? Can the existing shardblades perhaps be revived in some way ? In retrospect though, I appreciate the work better. I would perhaps originally have given it a 3.5 compared to WoK at 5.0, but I'm revising it upwards, probably to a 4.5. I still feel there's a tad too much explanation, it doesn't unfold into the imagination like WoK, but that was a very hard act to follow and ultimately WoR delivers almost everything we wanted. Not too sure about the stray Cosmere references, I'm not a huge fan of the rest of BS's oeuvre and although it can add a bit of depth, it is bringing in "alien" concepts that don't immediately fit into the Rosharian landscape. Maybe that will flesh out in later books. Final query, what does it mean that Lopen can absorb stormlight, is he about to become a Radiant, or a radiant squire ? Lopez as a radiant would be an interesting concept ! And how many Parshendi survived the battle and the aftermath, any ? There's a lot more comment I could make, but that's where it's at after 4 days of it. I'd been complaining that it took a long time to obtain access to the book, and funnily enough the Kindle version arrived less than a day before my hard cover copy was couriered in ! So started on the kindle and finished in the hardcover.

Does anyone else find it a bit odd that nobody seems to have noticed just how incredibly well Kaladin fought in the duel ? He's in an arena with 4 opposing shard bearers and all he has is a normal spear. He also takes a flying leap, smashing into the back-plate of a set of shard plate with just his legs and cracks the plate. The impact is huge and he breaks his legs which may or may not be obvious, but he heals them with storm light and gets up and continues to fight. He then performs the known but fabled "kiss of death" in catching a shard blade between his hands to stop it. The audience must surely be absolutely amazed by this, light and dark eyes regardless. That he is immediately arrested afterwards for his faux-pas about Amaram may be a temporary hiatus, but storms, that fight should have generated a huge story about Kaladin and his feats. Surely people noticed how he jumped and cracked shard plate, I bet nothing like that has ever been seen before, and yet he comes out of it uninjured (after healing that people don't know about). How is this not news of the utmost interest ? It just strikes me that it gets passed over too easily. But I liked the scene itself and absolutely loved Adolin's last trick of locking himself around Jakamav, brilliant improvisation.

Still embargoed until 6 March unless you spoof, and that's hard on an iDevice. And it's well into the morning of the 6th here, but not "there", so still totally frustrated. To make it worse I found that a local distributor had the hardcover and sent them out locally on 1 March ! So much for buying at source and paying extra to get it shipped. Still waiting on customs clearance for some stupid reason.

I see a bundle of red down-votes happening.....real soon now.... Geographically challenged of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your sanity !

Just received my Amazon email for delivery; for 2 day premium delivery I get shipped today; expected delivery date 11 March !!! 7 ********** days for $35 delivery, how are they sending it, by ultra long range pigeon or something ? That means reading the ebook from the 6th, mutter, mumble, mutter....