Smye

I speak with the rest when I say YES YES YES! If you're having trouble getting into it or if you're even just nervous about it, try the audiobook to get yourself going. It's incredible and Michael Kramer does a bang-up job!

Interesting theory - I'll admit I feel it's stretching for evidence, but I'm intrigued!

Despite the significance, and awesomeness, of the in-world meaning of 'half-breed' I have to agree wholeheartedly with Vaidd on this one. Despite the ability to 'see beyond' the real world connotations among those who haven't suffered as a result of constant racism, classism, sexism, etc., for those who have lived with the hatred and discrimination of others, the very phrase, even in this context, may prove alienating, etc. For example, if (in a 100% hypothetical), someone were to have a creature in their series known as a n***er, we'd still never use that as a ranking. Never would we say 'get over it, it's a different context." We understand that, as the word so many innocent, beaten down people heard as their last sound in the noose, that this word is hateful and we take great efforts to avoid even the appearance of condoning its use. The same logic, if less obvious, applies here. Also, Peter makes an excellent point, having never experienced something ourselves, who are we to claim it doesn't exist or doesn't happen. It's like a certain popular news commentator who recently claimed that privilege doesn't exist, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary. And Arook, I think it's less about apeasing those who are easily offended and more about ensuring that the 17th shard is a safe place for every individual to the extent that it is reasonably within our power. Sure, there will be things here that offend folks that we can't predict - but if it's brought to our attention that something so simple as changing a rank name (which takes, what, 5 minutes max if you're on dial up and an admin?) can prevent potential microagressions and implicit unintentional racism, then sparks, what argument can be made against the change? Those of us who carry buckets of privilege with us whereever we go (and I'm not just talking race here, or class, but any siginificant amount of privilege in our society) often feel our hackles go up when someone points out a group of people potentially being UNINTENTIONALLY maligned or marginalized by our actions. It's easy to fall back on "I'm not a racist, of course not, therefore they're just overreacting" and/or "they're racist towards me" and/or "you don't know what you're talking about." And of course that's our reaction, it's totally reasonable. Prejudice is filthy, evil stuff and we all know it. So of course we want to distance ourselves from it as soon as possible and take on a 'colorblind' view of the world. But when we do so, we ignore the injustice that still exists in our world, especially if we've never been part of it. And by doing so, we become part of it as complicit bystanders. Should we not, rather, accept the fact that we don't all share the same backgrounds, experiences, trauma, joys, etc. and take simple steps to avoid harming our fellow sharders, no matter how ridiculous it may feel to us. Thanks all for reading my thesis - I just finished a post-graduate degree on this very topic and so am still a little fired up - my apologies for the length. Lastly, I want to thank everyone who's actively thinking about this. Regardless of where you stand, if we're going to improve our messed up little world, it's got to start with these kinds of conversations. My hat is off to you all.

I'll absolutely admit that it took me surprisingly long to get into WOK - stick with it, I now love it FAR more than mistborn (which is saying a lot, because mistborn if excellent). I'd recommend trying the audiobook if you get too stuck, your local library might have it. So yeah - it gets far better

Reddit's not working for me, Anyone willing to post the latest here?

Bear with me: I'm thinking there's a connection between 'shadows of self' and the 'approximations of identity' that seem to be possible through aluminum feruchemy. After all, if aluminum can store identity, wouldn't that potentially leave one only a shadow of themselves or - perhaps more curiously - able to become a shadow of another (such as by storing all of their ID, 'downloading' the sDNA of another, etc) and then use his/her metalminds? I'm surprised not to have heard more discussion of this connection on the boards - especially with what seems to be the reappearance of TLR's metalminds in Bands of Mourning. Any thoughts?

I'm thinking more along the lines of a connection between 'shadows of self' and the 'approximations of identity' that seem to be possible through aluminum feruchemy. After all, if aluminum can store identity, wouldn't that potentially leave one only a shadow of themselves or - perhaps more curiously - able to become a shadow of another (such as by storing all of their ID, 'downloading' the sDNA of another) and then use his/her metalminds? I'm surprised not to have heard more discussion of this connection on the boards - especially with what seems to be the reappearance of TLR's metalminds in Bands of Mourning.

@KoboldKing, If I may be so bold, BWS has ALREADY included several alien race - the Kandra & Parshendi serving as two phenomenal examples. Just because they exist on a planet alongside humans, what's to say the Parshendi (or the mistwraiths from whence the Kandra were drawn) did not predate the humans on Scadrial? As near as I can remember, several of the shards put humans onto their given planets. Is this not akin to humans colonizing a planet that already had life on it (if, in the case in question, another race predated the humans arrival), only appearing to be native by having been there so long by the 'modern' day?

@Bort, here here!

Thanks Panda!

Hello fellow sharders, After being clinically obese since I was 2 years old, dozens of medically-supervised weight-loss attempts, and cortisol levels off the charts preventing me from being successful, I'm finally going in for bariatric surgery (VSG for those in the know) on Feb 12. That said, I'm going to be laid up for a while recovering before I can return to work, tooling around the yard, or hiking. As one Sanderfan who's read all of his works several times over to the rest of you, any suggestions for other books or movies I might enjoy while still on large doses of painkillers?

Weiry, do you have WOB on that?

Thanks.

I'm guessing it will be the 3rd book of the Wax/Wayne trilogy. Edit: Titan, How do you know SOS2 comes today?

Well done Peter ("heh heh heh heh heh") this is almost harder to wait for than when I thought the State of the Sanderson might be involved sometime this weekend (almost, but not quite).

Thanks Peter. Although I'm disappointed to know the blog post is still a ways off, having solid info is really nice, not to mention something else to eagerly await.

Yes, SOS2 is State of the Sanderson 2. Good thinking with the Firefight skin... that would make more sense to cause so much hassle AND pair well with SOS2

Blaze - fixed. I also suppose that even if you're right and magic is, in fact, required for access to Shadesmar, the flute itself could be invested by Hoid or others and thus be a tool for non-uber-invested types. I know Blaze that you believe the WOB above decribes superior vs inferior ways of reaching Shadesmar, but I disagree. OR it's not related to bringing its holder to Shadesmar at all, but somehow still resting in Amaram's collection for later significance.

Not to mention the apparent merging of the physical, spiritual, and cognitive realms when Hoid played the flute for Kaladin that seems to go beyond simply lightweaving. I wonder if it's connected to the merging that takes place in WOR when Kaladin speaks the third oath "Behind Kaladin, frost crystalized on the ground, growing backward away from him. A glyph formed in the frost, almost in the shape of wings."

Bummer.

In thinking more about recent WoB regarding non-magic users accessing Shadesmar here, here, here, and, most imporantly here: I keep coming back to the flutes. Given everything we know about investiture being deposited into non-living objects (Nalthis, etc), I'm guessing Hoid's flute in Amaram's hands is going to prove very ill for all. Thoughts?

When trying to access brandonsanderson.com I keep getting a 503 error or "no data received." Hopefully this means the SOS2 is coming soon. Any thoughts?

Anybody else get the heeby-jeebies when Shallan heard about Amaram's collection of flutes within just a few pages of Wit bringing up the flute Kaladin lost? All I can think of is that either: A) Wit's flute will end up among Amaram's collection to resurface later or In his work with the Sons of Honor, Amaram or his fellows have stumbled across some flute-related magic or splinterization and his flutes are the brethren and sistren of Wit's flute. Thoughts?

Hear me out here: At the beginning of WoK during Gavilar's assassination, Szeth notes that he has a choice between surgebinding and shardplate, that something about shardplate prevents/interferes with his surgebinding (likely specific to surgebinding granted by an honorblade as we see other KR surgebinding in shardplate in Dalinar's flashbacks). Gavilar always wore his plate while wielding his blade (on screen at least) and so would not be able to surgebind. I think it's likely he didn't even realize exactly what he had given the apparent conflict between plate and honorblade-surgebinding. Also, when on the practice grounds training under Zahel in WoR, Kaladin hears no screams while holding and practicing with a blade similar in description to Gavilar's old blade. We know Kaladin is between oaths 2 and 3 at this point, and that he hasn't progressed any further during the full disadvantaged duel in which he first heard the screams when touching an enemy shardbearer's blade - so it's unlikely that during training he would not have heard screams if he were using a deadspren-blade. He also cannot use Syl as a blade yet as he hasn't given the third oath. This leaves only 2 options - he's using someone else's KR spren-blade (though this seems doubtful as I can't see a KR leaving their spren around a training ground for others to use as practice) OR he's using an honorblade. Thoughts? Contradictions? Figgledegrak?

Well that kills my Sigzil-as-worldhopper theory. Thank you Meg!