Aleksiel

A break. He has definitely earned a vacation.

Sounds like you're not enjoying it right now, so may be leave it for when you are in a more suitable mood. The right rime to read it is when you feel like reading it 

 I was considering re-reading the books, sounds like more fun when you can discuss them with someone.

I find it difficult to believe Nale didn't know until now the so-called secret. Ash used the word 'adonalsium', the Heralds should know humanity came later to Roshar. The Skybreakers are supposed to already know this since it was learned by all Orders at least once and become one of the reasons for Recreanse. Did no one write it down? Did Nale swing by a couple of centuries after that and remain oblivious? The Nale and SB plot twist was unbelievable, it just doesn't work for me. I get that Nale is crazy and twist what the law is, but I don't buy this was somehow news for him and also made him switch sides. I agree it undermined his arc in ED.

6 hours ago, Alderant said:

A Mary Sue character is generally considered to be one that never does wrong. Wikipedia - " A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character." It's not that he magically finds a way and has no character depth, its just that he's seemingly perfect. Ewan McGregor's character in Down With Love begins very much as a Mary Sue character--he's a "ladies' man, man's man, man about town." Loved by all, admired by all, all women want him, etc. This is very much in line with how Adolin is described and treated within the story. He's the most elegible bachelor in Alethkar, he's extremely handsome, charming, the best duelist, and honorable to boot. He puts others first, sacrificing his own desires and insecurities for what is best for those he cares about. All the main characters, and many supporting charcters, like him. He instantly wins bridge four over. And, I mean, if the guy can murder one of the most important and powerful men in the Alethi kingdom and no one cares/he is congratulated for it, I would argue quite strongly that Adoliln is a Mary Sue character.

Apologies for jumping in the middle of the chain, I hope you won't mind.

You are right Adolin is presented in the manner that people like him a lot. But that's only on the surface. Women break up so often with Adolin it's become a source of jokes, his peers abandoned him once the reputation of his house is not up to their standards. Adolin fails to connect to people on a deeper level. Sure, he's liked by his subordinates and that is important, but those are basically the only people who genuinely like him outside of his family. Adolin didn't have a single friend to even anonymously tip him off about what was planned for him in the 4vs1 duel. Adolin sounds like he's a people's person, but in reality has fewer friends than even Dalinar.

I was surprised by the squire to radiant path, I didn't expect it and at first I thought that was just cheating. But Urithiru wasn't a mental facility, our main cast has particularly dark and troubled stories, which I don't expect to repeat. I'd find it weird if all Radiants were similarly broken to the extreme.

About people deserving to be Radiants, it's up for the spren to decide based on what they see from squires. Now I think it's a good enough method to swiftly build the numbers for each Order, what our main cast needed to overcome shouldn't repeat for most Radiants. I think part of the issue you have and I did, too, is that we are used to more foreshadowing for major things like this, so it felt too sudden. We fell for the myth and legends about the Radiants and the reality was far more mundane.

On 1/4/2018 at 7:40 AM, Subvisual Haze said:

I wonder how heavy Stormlight usage would affect pregnancy or the chance of getting pregnant.

Stormlight healing seems to work by restoring your body to your self-perception of a healthy state.  Recent injuries heal better than injuries from the past, but a strong belief can also impact the healing (Kaladin always has the scars because they're part of his identity, Lopen can regrow the arm because he 100% believes he should have 2 arms). 

So if Shallan doesn't wish or expect to become pregnant, does Stormlight function like a contraceptive for her?  Since "being pregnant" is not part of how she perceives her healthy self?

You make a good point, however I doubt Brandon would approach pregnancy as if it's a disease or a wound - he didn't with mental illness. Sure, stormlight works based on one's perception, but I have difficulty imagining it as contraceptive, because what you say about women can flipped to men thus one's sperm becomes infertile because he doesn't see himself as father and that would be really weird to me.

I think it would be more like for Brandon to have a baby, even when just a bunch of cells, have all aspects - cognitive and spiritual included - and have a rule they can't be overwritten by stormlight. I just don't see a religious person treating abortion as an enhanced healing perk.

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

Navani is primarily interested in building new things and figuring what makes things tick, if nobody has done so before, is wholly in the service of this main goal. She is an engineer, not a scientist. Willshaper, not a Dustbringer. Though now that this spot has been filled filled by Venli, she will, IMHO most likely become the Sibling's Bondsmith, which is would also agree with her passion for fabrials and civil planning.

Just because we have a WS doesn't mean there won't be another, it's reasonable to expect orders will slowly regain their numbers. Being something of an inventor may not fit the Order, we know they like new things, but there's nothing on actually creating them. The few sentences on DB and Malata's little screen time also aren't enough to conclude Navani is a likely candidate, but in my opinion if I had to chose between Orders for Navani, DB may not be a bad match.

I sincerely doubt we'll have another Kholin become Bondsmith, it sounds terrible both for meta and in-world reasons - too much power in a single family, too much alethi influence on high Radiant positions making the newly refound KR too akin to an elite alethi battle group than an actual international organization.

I overall like this, however I'm not a fan of the Ash-becomes-Dustbringer theory, I think people subscribe to it because they want to match the Order focus of a book with the flashback character, but Brandon never said they would match. Ash may not even be the main present day focus of the book despite having flashbacks.

17 hours ago, Greywatch said:

Perhaps a longer response on the whole thing later, but I've never seen Navani as Dustbringer before - that's pretty wild. What do you see in here for it?

This is the first time I see someone mentioning her as a DB, too (or I've forgotten it), however if you consider we were told they like figuring out what makes something tick, it has a certain level of compatibility with Navani's personality. I don't think the attributes of brave and obedient should be taken as face value - LW aren't what we'd usually describe as honest...

I'm not sure why you added two from MB, they feel out of place.

Least favorite as in least interesting? If so, then Tanalan, I didn't care about him at all. Amaram had the least interesting motivation and became a plot devise mutant, so overall boring. Nalan made an incredibly dumb choice after learning something he has no excuse not knowing already, his plot twist felt more like a plot hole. May be Nale and Amaram are a tie for me... Although Nale was overall more interesting, but the ending of OB killed my previous enjoyment of his character. I hate Moash, such a petty little cremling, but well-written overall, so it's a good and intended kind of hate. It's too soon to say anything about Ishar, he hasn't even made an appearance yet.  

12 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

But that's my core point, none of the other orders would be nearly as willing to "just follow orders" as the Skybreakers have been.  By their very nature the Skybreakers are exceptionally authoritarian and susceptible to corrupt leadership because of their devotion to existing rules and power structures.  That's kind of their thing.  And it's a bad thing.  It was a less bad thing back when a benevolent deity was at the head of their power structure, but it's fairly untenable in the modern era.

That's an oversimplification. Following the law above all else is merely the first specific Ideal they have. It's not a bad starting point, most pass it rather quickly from what little we know. SB are only susceptible to corrupt leadership if they chose a bad leader for their Dedication Ideal, which actually doesn't even need to be a person. One could dedicate themselves to the teaching of Nohadon or basically anything else they judge as greater truth and not what somebody else has decides is the truth. SB also chose their own quests, so how is that authoritarian?

You can call it bad, but just consider how Kal swore to defend even those he hate so long as it is right - and his guide as to what is right is basically himself. Every WR deciding individually what right is sounds like a recipe for civil war. You can argue people have done horrible things through history under the excuse of 'just following orders', but they've typically done so under the authority of someone certain of their own righteousness and moral superiority, which has some WR ring to it. Many wars have been lead under the pretext of 'defending'. Besides, following an authority figure doesn't seem to be mandatory for SB anyway, the problem seems to be that many were stupid enough to choose Nale as their Dedication despite his expressed concerns, but expecting differently might be akin to expecting a monotheist who met an archangel to not consider said archangel as reliable guide.

1 minute ago, Kered said:

True, but out of all fabrials we see, Soulcasters are used the most by the vast majority of nations for multiple important tasks. Regardless of what surge fabrials we think would be most important, the use of Transformation fabrials on Roshar is evidence enough which fabrials people thought were the most important. 

I'd rephrase this to it's evidence for what they managed to preserve and can still use. They didn't have to choose just one type to keep how like they have both Blades and Plates instead of choosing between Shards. There has been a discussion why so many Shards seems to have gotten lost, but it's not like a whole category of Shards disappeared.

19 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Minor nitpick, soulcasting is what they call the use of the surge. The surge itself is Transformation. 

You are right. Although it brings the question why such a poetic term when transforming would have worked fine, however renaming soulcasters to transformers would be awkward 

6 minutes ago, Kered said:

I would assume because of it's importance to all life on Roshar. Shelter and food are prime hallmarks for survival for any culture. Out of all surge related fabrials, Transformation is the most useful in terms of preserving life. It has wide spread uses, evidenced multiple times in WoK and WoR during the war on the Shattered Plains. A Progression fabrial would be a close second but healing doesn't matter if the population can't be sustained. In between Desolations it would be vastly important to mass produce resources for humanity. Thus that would be mean that the people would insure the knowledge of Transformation fabrials would be one of the things to last through the generations  

Fabrial with regrowth sound vital for survival, too. Where did all of them go? I think saying modern day rosharians have knowledge of how soulcaters work is pushing it - they know how to use them, but not how to make them. They can repair existing ones, but not create new ones. Preserving surge fibrials seems like something vital for post-Recreanse society, yet the only fabrial with regrowth we saw was in Nale's hands. May be there are more ancient surge fabrials we haven't seen yet. My point was I understand why transportation based ones were forgoten, but something you can carry in your pocket and it heals you? That's easy to use and keep. It's odd there aren't any of those around, Nale's aside.

Soulcaster is the name of the surge and thus became the byword for the fabrials with soulcasting. Now, why those are the only radiant fabrials left in circulation is a mystery to me. 

14 hours ago, Stormrunner1730 said:

Why didn't Nale/the Skybreakers try to take Szeth down while he was the "Assassin in White"?  I mean obviously Szeth makes a good Skybreaker/was recruited by Nale because of his dedication to the law (in the form of his Oathstone/the Shin religion) in WOk and WOR.  But he had to have broken dozens, if not hundreds of laws while breaking into various keeps/strongholds around the world to kill the people on Taravangian's list.  So why wouldn't Nale have wanted to take Szeth down while he was breaking these laws?

As Szeth himself pointed, Nale only cared about proto radiants breaking laws, so he could execute them in the name of the greater good, hence a guy with a Honorblade was whatever. I wouldn't count the time from murdering Gavilar to present WoK day as being of any particular interest for the SB, Szeth didn't do anything noteworthy and wasn't actively being the assassin in white. There hasn't been that much time between Szeth going on a killing spree under Vargo's orders in WoK and Nale recruiting him at the end of OB. It's just a few months.

10 hours ago, Herald Of Justice said:

They are not the worst order, they are the best order, they did not betray mankind and Just because you disagree with Nalan (I do to) doesn’t mean that the Skybreakers are bad, sure they may be siding with the Voidbringers, but you must understand that the parshmen ARE the rightful owners of the world. Also I’m sure that there are many Skybreakers who didn’t swear themselves to Nale. Nale himself mentioned that MOST follow the law of the land they are in, however some have chosen to follow him.

 

They did in OB when apparently all but Szeth decided to follow Nale's insane move to join Odium despite technically already being the only Order who knew the Recreanse secret and brushed it off aside anyway. It made very little sense even with Nale's madness. He should have already known. The SB should have already known or at least be confident enough to remain at humanities side like their predecessors did.

8 hours ago, RShara said:

Yep.  Which is why Nale is utterly bugnuts, and the Skybreakers too, for following him.  Like, how do you NOT see your leader (and HIS leader) is a lunatic and a raving lunatic?

An outsider to a certain belief system sees it very differently and can have many takes on it that those who hold the said belief system see as unfounded. If you believe Heralds are messengers of God and saviors of humanity, you can easily believe a regular person cannot understand them and their reasoning is beyond mortals' comprehension, so anything that would have sounded loony from the average human, is perceived as wisdom from a herald. For example Rock in OB was confused by something Syl said and replied she was wise, yet his internal monologue noted he doesn't understand how that was wise. But he worships spren, so it must have been wise. In WoK she made him go to a pile of poo, yet Rock didn't see it as a childish prank like Kal did. Humans are very good at reasoning away things that contradict accepted truths.

Evi's death was underwhelming for me, too, but for a different reason. She died doing something stupid that would have achieved about nothing. Best case scenario Evi was hostage returned for the promise to not burn down the city, which Dalinar and Sadeas could have still burned down once they have her back and Evi would have spend the rest of her life locked under guard to not mess another plan. 

Ivory said he was troubled by how prone to change people are, so I'd hazard at least one oath has to do with being consistent and logical regardless of where this path may take you. 

I think parts of the Diagram are a subterfuge and what's truly important is what Odium couldn't see. I'm interested why he couldn't see it - did it have something to do with the type of surface that was used like in another novel or was it something else? And since T had the Diagram written on papers carried around shouldn't Odium be able to read it and nullify the initial effort made to conceal certain parts of the Diagram?

But I don't want to get hyped about the Diagram and what the hidden part of it might hold and mean, because Recreanse secret was pretty underwhelming, so I'd rather not expect much.

7 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

I agree that having one's perspective dismissed as "just a disgruntled shipper" is irritating and something you do see around here.  I'm pretty sure @Aleksiel wasn't doing that, but I certainly understand the gut reaction when you see something so clearly and it feels like its being summarily dismissed just because it supports what is seen as a "lesser" argument.

I in no way intended something like this. When I said I understood why others might disagree I wasn't attacking Shalladin shippers in any way or implying I see this view as lesser.

I sincerely apologize my post caused so much trouble.

6 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Then how should I interpret it? Educate me. You are basically telling me, that my perception is skewed by the fact, that I find the resolution unsatisfactory.

I said the execution was unsatisfactory. What I meant was while I agree the way it was handled leaves something to be desired in my perception it doesn't mean there would be farther development, but I can see how others would view it as hinting we haven't seen the end of it. 

3 minutes ago, SLNC said:

That doesn't change the fact, that he is implying confirmation bias on our side, because we don't accept the resolution. It is just something, that is extremely unfair in a discussion, where I try to make my point by using the text at hand and that is why I'm reacting in this confrontational way.

That's what you read into it, but that's not what I said. No need to jump to conclusions and get hostile  Don't read the worst implications into my posts, I suck at implying things in English anyway.

1 minute ago, Dreamstorm said:

@Aleksiel also thinks the resolution was crem, they have just accepted that it actually is the resolution.  You have not (and neither have I.)  But you guys agree on the fundamental point - the love triangle resolution was badly done.

Basically yes, thank you.

1 minute ago, Dreamstorm said:

Please explain!  I don't think we even have a late-WoR Sadeas viewpoint?  (We go off-topic so much, I figure no one will mind )

We had late enough for me to expect there would be more, but it turned out I was wrong. But you are right to point this out, I expected more PoVs later and should have taken the hint if there wasn't it meant it wasn't going in the direction I first thought it would.

3 minutes ago, SLNC said:

The reader is unimportant in that situation. Important is what the stone means to Kaladin. The Tarah flashback was there to establish, that for Kaladin the stone is a symbol for those, that have died and that he just can't let go of them. Once again, Kaladin didn't need the stone to come to the realization, that Shallan reminds him of Tien.

And even then, I don't see why the stone has to serve a singular function.

But this is a book and a great many things are done for the reader's sake, including foreshadowing and symbolism.

4 minutes ago, SLNC said:

I'm sorry, I was trying to abstain from alleging confirmation bias, but when you do the same to me, I'll have to.

I'm out of this conversation. You don't even seem to want to understand my position.

You went for the worst possible take when I was trying to do the opposite...

@SLNC May be I can summarize it as you seeing more in the stone and me seeing more in Tarah  I don't think she was this foreshadowed and even shown just for that.

15 minutes ago, SLNC said:

He didn't need the stone to realize, that Shallan reminded him of Tien, that he already found out in the chasm.

The stone was for the average reader's sake in my opinion, because the connection between Tien and colored stones is well established and I'd expect more people to remember it as opposed to one or two specific sentences in the chasm scene they read three years ago. It may have been unnecessarily for you, me and may sharders, but majority of readers don't re-read previous books before picking a sequel, so it was a good way to imply Kaladin meant Tien without spelling it.

I'm repeating myself, but I can understand your frustration with the poorly handled resolution. Where we differ is that precisely because it was unsatisfactorily handled you (and others) don't accept it as resolution. Risking to go a bit off-topic, I felt underwhelmed with Sadeas murder in a similar way, I was disappointed we got his PoVs and saw how he and Ialai were plotting only to lead to his defeat before he could execute some crafty sneaky plan, but that was a red herring all along.

2 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

 

The stone symbolizes Tien.  Tien is the reason Kaladin can't leave and follow Tarah (i.e. he needs to protect boys like Tien.)  Shallan reminds Kaladin of Tien (likely because he's a lightweaver, too.)  So one can definitely read Tien as being the symbolism, but that it's tied to different things in each instance.

Btw - I believe and like DP's analysis, but I think it's reasonable that someone can get the Tien symbolism and still not think that it's evidence that Shalladin is alive and well.

ETA: Sorry @Aleksiel should have just let you handle this!

No, it's nice to read you understood my take! 

2 minutes ago, SLNC said:

You'd... disregard the complete parallel, that those scenes embody? Whew.

I mean it is your decision, but I'm still a bit baffled. I mean, we didn't need the flashback with Tarah to know, that she and Kaladin were lovers, that we knew before. It was the scene, that we finally understand, that Kaladin can't be there for the living, because he dwells on those that have died, which is why he also can't speak his fourth ideal (I assume.)

And why bring the stone into the scene with Tarah, when it, by your perception, only is there to be a metaphor for Shallan reminding Kaladin of Tien?

I think that's not the parallel the scene had. Colored stones are a symbol of Tien. In Tarah's scene we see how difficult it was for Kal to go for someone he wanted in the present because he couldn't let go of the guilt from Tien's death. In the other scene the colored rock was again a symbol of Tien, but this time it served to reinforce in the reader's mind who Kal was thinking of when he said Shallan reminded him of someone without saying it.

4 minutes ago, SLNC said:

While that is a possibility, I'd like to refer to a certain post by @DeployParachute, who sadly is sick atm (get well soon!), which gives another perspective on why the Tarah flashback was thrown in. It has something to do with a certain stone.

Just to throw in another perspective.

It's an interesting take, I agree. My personal is somewhat different: multicolored rocks first appear in one of Kal's flashback in Tien and they remain a symbol of him ever since. In the scene where Kal is looking at the kissing Adolin and Shallan he has a rock and alludes how she reminded him of Tien, which can be found as far back as WoR. The colored rock is there to strengthen the connection between Shallan and Tien.