Darkness

Here is the website link on Supanova: http://www.supanova.com.au/guests/brandon-sanderson/ Here is the relevant updated info as of right now: "Appearance Notes Brandon looks forward to meeting all his fans in Sydney and Perth in June 2017. Brandon will conduct a general admission Q&A, and participate in signing and photo sessions* throughout each Saturday (10.30am to 5.30pm) and Sunday (11am to 5pm) in both cities." So that would be June 17 and 18 in Sydney (Sydney Showground, Olympic Park), and June 24 and 25 in Perth (Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre). I'll be in attendance on June 17th, probably all day if I can get the wife's permission haha. And I'll bring a recording device with me (my phone and charger)... anyone know if events like this allow recordings and/or have charging stations?

edit in: All I could find was from twitter. Katelyn Gigante @Silasary 16 Feb 16 @BrandSanderson @nookBN When will you next be touring Australia? Brandon Sanderson @BrandSanderson @Silasary @nookBN Summer 2017 Supanova! #nooktalks 1:27 PM - 16 Feb 2016

he's in Sydney in June

I actually have that in my long list of questions when I see Brandon in June haha, picked it up on my last reread

That's where it was! Haha I read way too many signings and wobs in the last few days. Thanks

That isn't a fourth wall breakage, that's actually a part of his back story and has recently been explained by Brandon. I'll try to find and edit in the quote if nobody beats me to it.

in my opinion, the honorblades are more a tool to be used in Desolations than an integral part of the oathpact. The heralds' surgebindings are fueled directly by honor through their blades, which likely has a large soul-expanding effect on them, helping in the fight. I do think that the oathpact relies on heralds being present, possibly as a sort of hostage situation, but I don't think it relies on those specific heralds, but rather any 10 willing persons.

Zahel is old enough to be... Well I wont go there, but if he healed emotionally from the trauma of his early days (and Jasnah lived a long time) they might be a decent match. I like the Nazh idea though, and I would agree that Kaladin + Jasnah is not really a compatable couple. Mostly because of conflicting oath interpretations (Ivory apparently doesnt take issue with Jasnah hunting bad guys, but i doubt Syl would see it as honorable even if Kaladin agreed. Also, Kal has a major chip on his shoulder for lighteyes, and Jasnah is extremely noble in bearing. I honestly think she's going to find him insufferable, and vice versa, and then they will unite in a common goal, until in the end one will die just as they gain a sort of uneasy mutual respect. Storms that escalated quickly...

ooo! Ooo! Jasnah + Zahel! Scholars unite! And of course Nightblood + Stick.

take heart, I dont think you guys are actually in the minority. Maybe word count-wise, but I don't think number wise from what I've seen. Maxal is very fond of lauding Adolin and disparaging Kaladin umm... Verbosely... <3 you maxal, but you do get a little rosy tint on your screen when you type 'Adolin'. Much the way I get when I talk about Hoid tbh. I always hide from / drop out of any conversation involving Adolin because I just don't have the time to read novelettes, but this one has been mostly instructive. I definitely think we'll need to see resolution of the betrothal, which is still in force and should be more publicly acceptable due to Shallan's new status. As far as she knows, she still needs the family connection. However, even though it is to me the more likely course, and Adolin + Shallan works better than many political marriages, I still favour the Kaladin + Shallan chemistry, dynamic, and background. I think it has more potential. Regarding the intelligence competition we seem to be having, I have a ton of things to say, but I don't want to risk writing my own novel all in one go. I'll just say that intelligence comes in many forms, has many aspects (ingenuity/innovation, perception/synthesis, application, retention, capacity, maturity, and many more), and I truly believe that most/any 2 people will have areas in which they are more and less intelligent than another. I grew up like Kal: Speaking from an objective standpoint, everything came easily to me. I wasn't privileged from a socioeconomic view, but I never had to exert myself to excel. That got me a key role on every school sports team, into provincial competitions, a 98% overall academic average in high school, and consistent honours with distinction in university. I also excel at strategic thinking... From chess to war games to aptitude testing, to IQ (176). I taught myself to play piano and discovered the circle of fifths and resonance patterns on my own as a teen. Many people I know have referred to me as the smartest person they know (Kal is naturally athletic and book smart, and has battlefield sense... Even at a young age in Amaram's army he could improvise successfully and read the field of battle). However, and before you judge me on my arrogance, I have always been socially stupid. I've tried to work on it, but I come off as extremely arrogant, and was even more so as a child. Probably because I am quite aware of my abilities. I had only a handful of true friends growing up, and I struggle to empathize with people (Kal is also quite arrogant, probably without even realizing it... It's one of the reasons I relate to him so well). Additionally, now that I am in dental school, I have discovered that I never learned how to discipline myself to study. I never had to before, and now that I need to it's more difficult for me to focus than it seems for my colleagues. Kal actually has this part down pat. He studied to become a surgeon, and I can say from personal experience that medical knowledge takes hard work, memorization, and synthesis. Adolin is a masterful duelist. He has been trained in courtly proceedings and culture, and intuits social situations easily. I would say he is easily more socially intelligent than Kaladin, despite his complete ignorance regarding female interaction (re: "I had no idea flirting with so and so might upset this other girl!"). Adolin has an edge in training and accumulated knowledge over Kal on the battlefield, but I think they are equally intelligent in it. We haven't seen Adolin's scholastic abilities as such, but he doesn't really value scholarship as a personal virtue because of the culture. Adolin also has the edge in emotional intelligence because he is able to reach outside of himself to put himself in the place of others (the prostitute, his soldiers, even dark eyes), whereas Kaladin's moment with Shallan showed me how rare it was for him to truly appreciate another person's paradigm and history. TL;DR - Shadolin is a natural story progression but I think Shalladin has more potential as a literary device. Kaladin is more intelligent in some respects, which may fit our classical definition of 'smart' and Adolin is more intelligent in others (socially and emotionally). Final most important take home point: I'm obviously naturally superior to all of you in every way, so you should just take my word for it and let me make all your choices for you (channeling my inner Taravangian lol). Ps. That last part is facetious... Sometimes hard to tell over the web haha

Just found this thread, but um... post more? Also, if you send this to Brandon, that might be very good for any future movie casting/cinematography choices... but it might also put Isaac out of work, so...

Wait... What? Source on Sazed's input into that please?

To be honest, I might have to revise the Spiritual and Cognitive processes. Rereading my initial post, I think the Spiritual to Physical transition is what makes the dead shardblade have condensation on it. Jasnah comes from the Cognitive to Physical and she isn't soaking wet. Also, Syl doesn't have condensation when she changes forms because she doesn't need the 10 heartbeat revival every time she's summoned, same as Pattern (even when Shallan thought he needed 10 heartbeats he still wasn't wet). So my final answer is that the 10 heartbeats thing is reaching into the spiritual to repeatedly revive the spren (which makes a fun symmetry with the heart being the hemalurgic bind point centre, and I believe it's supported), but the days-long forging of the initial bond is also reaching the Spiritual part of the spren. There is however, a little more to it. See I was neglecting the exchange I've posted after this paragraph. You have to read the whole thing to really get a feel for the mechanics of realm interaction... I read most of the 90+ references on "spiritual" from theoryland today too haha. Anyway, just as the physical appearance of the blade changes slightly in response to the Cognitive mechanics (and quite possibly the Spiritual), the realms tend to bleed into each other and not be completely isolatable. So the spren is revived from the Spiritual and 10 heartbeats, but that is tempered by the Cognitive (conscious intention to summon the blade). Similarly, the initial bond is of a spiritual nature, but it is made and broken (i.e. filtered) through a Cognitive directive.

Ishar isn't a radiant, so I wouldn't really count him. The Rosharan Bondsmiths have never had blades. However, Brandon has said,

the stormfather told dalinar, "you will be a radiant without shards" plural, so that's another little conundrum. WoB confirms that all orders had access to shardplate. Though many chose not to use it, possibly because they weren't warriors. How does the stormfather expect that Dalinar wont get shardplate? I always assumed that the cousins to highspren would be logicspren, but I'm not really sure why.

If the champion thing goes down, I'll be looking for an individual who instinctively draws in stormlight (common to surgebinders), takes to their powers naturally, and is more or less universally hated, possibly even by him/herself (odium will certainly be working on honor's champion). So far in our first 2 books, Szeth is the most universally hated, and Kaladin/Lift has taken to the abilities most naturally. I'll be mostly discounting shard interference in all this. I dont believe either champion will be purely of any one shard. We all saw how much Ruin interfered with Vin. However, Szeth is quite methodical in using surgebindings, but that was with the honorblade. We also haven't really seen many people learning to surgebind, which may (read: Will almost certainly) introduce us to more potential champions along the way.

not really... It's not like they are corpses under my thinking, so it's basically the windspren continuing to protect people. I think Syl can appreciate that kind of action. It's also possible that she doesn't remember the origins of shardplate yet.

Our moon has a massive role in tides, poetry, culture, and even religion in many instances. You might say it's on everyone's mind in some way, often in a romantic, scientific, or even magical sense. Theoretically, if earth had a cognitive realm, I would imagine that our moon would have a fairly substantial representation there, and might even be somewhat magical in nature. Many of our stormlight archive characters also mention the moons in their PoVs, so I think we may have that in common. My question would be, do the moons appear in Shadesmar? And are they represented as glass beads, spren, or something else? (basically, trying to get closer to the 3 moons being the 3 bondsmith spren) edit: When Shallan convinced her own memories that Pattern was locked inside the box, I know he wasn't Physically in the box, but was he actually locked Cognitively in that space because of the intensity of Shallan's perception?

I honestly think it is the cousin spren, but I do see how it's definitely arguable. I never thought about the glyphs kaladin makes, that is definitely important but I can't even guess at how or why. I dont think the shard plate is dead in the same way as the blades though, mostly because I don't think the cousin spren were able to connect as deeply with the radiants, so they weren't really affected as badly as the primary radiantspren.

I think the spren aren't stuck in between so much as fragmented into the 3 separately. I also think that there is a literal snapback when the bond is broken, causing massive trauma to each part beyond what separating the 3 aspects of the spren would entail. The core intent and power of the spren gets locked into the spiritual realm, stunted so that it takes days to establish a bond with a person. The mind of the spren is much like the mind of a hoed, locked in the cognitive and only able to process the basest functions, like pain. The cognitive remains of the spren is so wounded that it takes 10 full heartbeats to reach it even once a rudimentary bond is established. The physical 'body' of the spren is similarly cut off from the other 2 aspects and broken such that it cant change form at will, but keeps a faint ability to be modified slowly over time. I think the screams a surgebinder hears only occur when the spren's aspects are temporarily touched together through the surgebinder's naturally heightened connection to all 3 realms. However, only those who are bonded (the bearer and temporarily the surgebinder) and in close physical proximity (ie if the king's blade were on loan and a surgebinder touched it, neither the king nor the loanie would hear screaming under this assumption, but the surgebinder touching it would) to the blade can hear it. Relis might have heard the initial piercing scream, dropped the blade, heard the screams dying off as the spren's temporary connection (and his physical proximity to the blade) faded, and assumed that meant he killed it. I would also love to know if a third, unbonded, person touching the blade would hear screams. I would also love to see an occasion where renarin or kaladin touches adolin's shardblade while he holds it. I think some very interesting thoughts would be inspired in adolin once the shock wore off. Heck even once he sees a radiantspren turn into a shardblade. As a side note: I dont belief any living non-surgebinder has seen a radiantblade in action. That knowledge of where blades come from might not change much, but it could lead to some very interesting conversation and eventual historical reveals.

It probably wasn't random. And by probably I mean Brandon would have a tough time justifying this:

something that might be added to this theory is the appearance of the shards Ruin and Preservation when Sazed first saw them. There could be quite a bit of data oin how the shards appeared when they weren't held. If memory serves, the shards were lying in a field, and Sazed went and thrust his coppermind-bound arms at / into? Them. I dont really remember a lot of descriptive details though. I dont think that they appeared as pools at that point, though they were 'undirected' as of Ati and Vin's deaths, I guess another variable is that the shards weren't whole... Parts of them were invested in Scadrial and its people. Overall I like your proposal, but I'm a little sceptical that Adonalsium would allow himself to be maneuvered into vulnerable and accessible position unless he wanted to be. edit: I am in no way indicating that I believe Adonalsium to have been male... It was the automatic way I wrote it haha

You may want to phrase this one differently, Brandon could say, 'connected? It's certainly connected somehow' and be really vague. Just off the top of my head, you might want to say something like, 'are the stars in Taln's scar and the star in Threnody red for the same reasons?'