EmagSamurai

To be honest, I've only read half the posts here because I've been trying to skip the spoilers. If the mods want to move the thread, I'm ok with that. I'll catch back up on it in March

Excellent! Interesting that the animals have a better grasp on getting spren to do things in the physical realm than the people do at this point.

Just trying to spread a little Christmas cheer I hadn't considered that. You would think by now I wouldn't take anything for granted where Brandon is concerned, but I certainly assumed that it would be very difficult to part a Herald with his blade.

Haha! Yeah, I thought it was telling that it was added at the end. Although I must admit your imagery certainly makes the situation more entertaining I've been chewing on this for a bit, and it's impressive how Brandon can give away such a huge piece of information, and still not tell us much! The man deserves mad props!

A trend seems to be developing with regard to getting new info from Brandon by way of signed books. Well, I'm not above that either, so here's my contribution I asked Brandon for something about honorblades that we don't already know. His response was, "One Herald (other than Taln) kept his honorblade (or, at least, took it back). What is implied here is interesting. Can we assume that only two Heralds now have their honorblades? Is someone or something forcibly keeping the other blades, or is this just a reference to how the blades were originally left. And if we assume the other heralds have NOT also recovered their blades, we can eliminate female characters with a blade as a herald (not that we really thought that was the case, but I thought it worth mentioning). EDIT: Fixed a spelling error. I sure hope no one read that before I fixed it

I find myself worrying about this more as I move through BS's other works. I've read the original Mistborn trilogy, but didn't like it enough to read The Alloy of Law. I'm working on Elantris now, but I have to admit I'm not particularly captivated by it. Unless the story picks up dramatically in the second half, I don't know that I will read the planned sequel. Had I read these other books first, I very likely would have passed on TWoK all together. I certainly hope that the rest of the series is as good as the initial book as it is at the top of my list of all-time favorites! As Kersplattle mentioned, this is also just MHO.

when looking at "gibletish", the word "blite" jumps out at me. Unfortunately, that leaves sigh, gish, or shig left over. Shiga is a toxin, but that's a bit of a stretch I think. One definition of sigh (sigh for) literary feel a deep yearning for (someone or something lost, unattainable, or distant I suppose I could try spelling blight correctly We could go with blights which would leave an i, and e. One more, "is blight" just leaves an e. Shardblade is blight?

I would tend to agree that soulcasting to encapsulate gems would seem to be a waste. Unless they put the "trainees" to work doing it. Even then it seems like a pretty big undertaking to keep up with demand. Sounds like we generally agree that silica is at least a common substance, so the question is then where do they get it in a form that is easy to turn to glass (e.g. sand). Crem still seems like a candidate. Obviously it's not entirely composed of sand, but if sand is a component it shouldn't be hard to separate it out before the crem solidifies.

That's an interesting bit about the 10 cent piece costing 25 cents. I knew a copper penny was worth more than 1 cent, but was not aware that in some countries the situation was worse. But even still, the cost of making the glass would need to be very small. If sand/silica is in fact an extremely rare substance on Roshar, then I can't see it being used to encapsulate the gems. If it costs $10 to make a penny, I doubt the mint would still be making them. Edit: Yeah, what Shardlet said Up-votes for both of you

True, but whatever they're making the glass from has to extremely cheap, or the glass would be worth more than some of the smaller denominations. Crem would fit the bill for something that is so common that it would have nearly zero intrinsic value.

Maybe crem has a high enough silica content to be used for making glass. There has to a lot of sand somewhere due to the erosion of the stone caused by the high storms. Crem seems like a likely candidate for that eroded material.

Has any connection been made between the creation of fabrials and Geranid's discovery that measuring and documenting a spren causes it to become "stuck"? My thought is that the artifabrians may be documenting the process they are using to trap a certain spren to produce specific effects with a fabrial, and the act of documenting this is what actually forces the spren to do something. I'm thinking about the Navani's drawings of her fabrial as an example. Could that be in some way related to making them work.

Do we know if gems come from anywhere other than gemhearts?

This certainly seems to be the most obvious conclusion, and this is certainly what I assumed during my readings. However, since we don't know where Elhokar's plate and blade came from, nor do we know where Sadea's plate came from, on the surface it certainly seems to be a viable theory. Considering Sadeas' acts during the night of the kings death, I don't think it would be a stretch for Elhokar to give him the plate if he already had his own. While not my favorite theory, I wouldn't be too surprised if turned out that way.

I could see Sadeas getting the plate. IIRC, the book even mentions that he likes to paint his plate. The first person to the king could have easily taken the blade and blamed the assassin. No one would question the blade being gone. It would raise more questions with the blade still being there.

Interesting indeed! That interlude seemed to make little sense in the context of the book until now. I like it!

Awesome! As bad as it is, I still love that movie!

My first thought on this is that the air above any city is not heavily populated. And since the physics of the cognitive realm seem different than the physical realm, shouldn't one be able to travel through the space "above" populated areas quickly since they are largely uninhabited with the exception of the occasional skyeel? If that's how it works, then moving through the cognitive realm will be fast regardless of whether an area is heavily populated or not.

I agree, completely. Edit: I should clarify a bit. My point was that if Shallan had previously attributed her interaction with Shadesmar as some sort of stress induced hallucination, her subsequent interaction would have clarified what had happened, and she would then know the truth about the blood present at her father's death. That said, I don't think the blood present at her father's death was the result of an accidental soulcasting.

Assuming that Shallan had unknowingly soulcast something to blood when her father died, I think she would have put two and two together after the goblet incident. If she still believes she killed her father, then she either now understands more about how it happened, or it's unrelated to soulcasting. Edit: Corrected a typo

I agree, this is a good question. I suspect that it is intent that determines whether the Cryptics will accept something as truth. If you believe you are telling the truth, that is enough. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in the upcoming books. It could certainly offer an opportunity for some twists.

I was hooked on this book pretty early. While I'm not fan of Szeth, his chapter at the beginning was enough to make sure I read the whole book. However, there were two scenes/events later in the book that really cemented it for me. The first happened in "An Honor" when Kaladin fell from the bridge. When I read that I thought, he get's it! BS added that little detail because he knows it's the coolest part! Then, of course, there is the tower battle.

Thank you, much! Vote for you!

Excellent. Thanks!

Agreed. My thought being that his "truthless" status is a result of a failed bonding. Edit: BTW, what does WoB stand for? I get the idea, but not sure about the Wo?