Aleksiel

@PhineasGage I was thinking of a different quote, which I remember as Adolin saying he used to be jealous of Renarin for the attention he got, but I either can't find it or confused it with something else. You are right Adolin worships Dalinar, who said he hated his sons for a while after Eve's death - children tend to blame themselves for not being good enough, and being what his father wants him to be was part of Adolin's arch until recently where he says he isn't as good as Dalinar thinks he is, which also has a certain self-blame ring (if that's the right word) to it. Just because Adolin wasn't highprince doesn't mean he didn't have huge responsibilities for someone that age. About his relationships I mean come on, yes Renarin is his brother and his friend, but you sound like Hesina pretending she doesn't get what Kal meant when he said he had no friends - people need friends outside of their family, too. Not being able to make friends is worrisome. His alleged best friend joined the other side in the 4vs1, that's pretty harsh... @Fulminato you are right, I edited it. Thanks!

Some get high on moss, other on alcohol, Adolin - on fashion. He wore her pendant before every duel. Granted he had a number of other, too, so I'll accept if you don't count it. As for physical trauma causing spirit web to crack we don't know a lot from before (he's surely been through enough battles), but he suffers continuing migraine after being beaten, which points towards concussion. Also, Maya is already attached to him and we've learned nahel bond makes the cracks wider, so it could be possible for deadeyes bond to latch to a crack and slowly widen it over time enough to break it. I'd say he works his emotional pain as anger - he is a firecracker and one of the ways people process their sadness and grief is though anger - he has plenty of that. He barely controls his emotional outbursts, so I really wouldn't call him composed. He also shoves down other sources of sorrow like his only supposed friend Jakamav betraying him in the 4vs1. He felt betrayed and never mentioned it anymore. In my view Adolin expresses his suffering though anger outbursts or simply not thinking about it and focusing on other things. He either explodes or takes himself out of the situation hurting him (like when he left the winehouse when he and his 'friends' were still talking to each other).

Seems you have made up your mind, this doesn't exactly sound inviting, but I will give you a list of things about Adolin: Was neglected in favor of his brother, which he possibly saw as being unloved, because small children do not have the experience to interpret it accordingly and we know he felt jealous of Renarin Lost his mother young His father hated him for a while He didn’t want to be a soldier The burden of huge responsibility has been on his shoulders since young age He gave up on his passion – dueling – to appease his father Even in battle he seeks something of an equal duel, because slaughter makes him sick He lost thousands of men, some close to him He didn’t have any meaningful relationship with his peers until recently – no friendships and no romance he could manage to keep, that points towards some serious issues He literally considered his taylor to be the most trustworthy person in Kholinar, comic value aside, that's pretty said if you think about it I think a number of the things I listed exceed Lyn's struggles, however you clearly disagree. Adolin has to adhere to social norms, too. Granted those are flashier, it doesn't mean he truly wanted them, he spend his life so far trying to please his father. He's put aside his own desires to be the perfect son, soldier and prince. Also, you missed Elhokar in your sort of analysis and his main issue seemed to be that he isn't as good a ruler as his father.

And don't you guys who keep saying Adolin isn't broken enough. How do you measure that? Do you think someone should be near dysfunctional in order to qualify for radianthood?

Everybody is after what they percieve as right in a way - for WR that's protecting, for SB it's law, EC - logic and so on. I don't think Syl's claim honorspren are about what's right and highspren care only for laws should be taken at face value. Spren can be very judgemental of each other and honorspren tried to take over Shadesmar, and also hunt lesser spren, so their version of what's right is not equal to goodness... Skybreakers are different from what I expected. They are about being consistent in Nale's words, follow whatever outside source they decide and choose their own quest. That's very different from my previous image of emotionless robots obeying the letter of any law just because someone institute it (I blame Nale for that). So in a way they aren't as different from the WR as I thought. I suspect what was hinted a civil war between those Orders wasn't strictly WR vs SB, but a mixture of them on each side of the argument depending on their personal oath interpretations. I think Nale's decision made no sense, he must have known before singers were on Roshar before humankind. I expect more SB to join Szeth and Urithiru. I found it odd Nale said he'd visit to supervise Szeth's training, he is indeed insane.

She states certain things about everyone - her father laughing, Helaran never leaving, and then she gets to her mother and says 'mother loves me', which for me indicates she considers that to be untrue in her the real life. No other person of her family is explicitly said to love her, that seems to be the given about anyone, but her mother.

The planned flashback characters for the last books of the first five SA books are Szeth and Eshonai, so Venli might be the source for her sister's since she's now dead. When OB was planned as having Szeth in the spotlight, the books was called Stones Unhallowed. I think he'll be a good choice of focus considering how his arch is now entangled with the main cast, but it's too soon to say.

She does not think her life was amazing up until her mother tried to kill her. That was an illusion and she recognized it as such: You are right to point out it's a lie, but I disagree that she's unaware of that.

I don't think it contradicts the previous ideals, despite what Szeth said. The first specific one SB have is to follow the law above all else, so how can you break that by becoming the law? It was interestingly put it as 'become truth', it reminded me of Shallan saying she seeks truth. Like Spiritual Realm absolute Truth, so I wonder if the fifth SB Ideal is connected to the SR.

I thought we'd learn about it in her book, so I was initially dissatisfied with WoR for not going far back enough for us to know what broke Shallan, but it befits her character. She's working on her painful memories in reverse chronological order - first her father's murder, then her mother's and we'll see what was before that at a later point. You are right that we are missing very important details, thing is Shallan might be missing those, too. On a different, on-topic note, I've been a fan of Adolin revives his Blade theory for years, so you all can imagine how happy all Maya related moments made me, I think next book will be the one to make it canon. I did not expect the scratched eye at all, at first I thought this was somehow Ash. And seeing other spren keeping deadeyes caged to not wander off to their body's locations, this was so... I don't even know how to express what it made me feel. It made Recreance horrible on a whole new level for me.

While Shallan was creating that perfect image when talking to Hoid as a small child, the one with all her family happy around her, she said 'mother loves me'. She did not explicitly say this for anyone else. Feeling unloved by your own mother will be soul breaking for anyone. We are yet to see any flashback before her mother tried to murder her and Shallan continues to avoid facing painful memories.

There was another topic as far as WoK with excel file with similar info and those abilities are listed as perks there. I also remember it as passive abilities in other topics, so I don't agree resonance is the established term for those.

Hm, I would keep 'resonance' for what Dalinar and Shallan did creating the map of Roshar, and change that field to 'passive ability' or 'perk'. For now I can't tell if resonance is a Bondsmith related ability only or any two orders could create something new together. Edit: a minor thing is changing the heralds to either all vorin or all actual names for the sake of consistency.

The important thing is why: She was mentioned in the first two books and was in a flashback in the third. That will lead somewhere, the question is where.

Kaladin had a short lived romance with Tarah, who is somewhere in Alethkar. Why not ignite the old fire in future books?

Was anyone else surprised Szeth chose to follow Dalinar? At first I though he was talking about Kal. When exactly did Szeth have time to learn enough about Dalinar to view him as worthy leader?

Hmm, I'm not so sure. Here's what you are referring to: Side note: It's so nice to be able to find a WoB easily and from the first try, thank you all who created Arcanum, you guys are amazing!

If the little Cryptic wasn't the focus, why bother at all to have Elhokar and his not-really spren go there? We saw the search through Moash's PoV, there was no need to send Hoid to the rescue for the sake of seeing the fused looking for something.

Are you saying that sphere is another perfect gem then? Because otherwise the voidlight should have evaporated already. Well, that and regular spheres don't seem to hold voidlight judging how the everstorm passed Kaladin in the beginning and his spheres remained dun, but that's inconclusive, we didn't see anyone attempting to charge spheres in the everstorm. Still, it's suspicious it glows dark after so much time. It could hold the missing unmade, the one that was lost to even myth and legends. I, too, was under the impression the fused in Kholinar were looking for the Cryptic Hoid rescued. I wonder if Ba-Ado-Mishram's disappearance and Honor's death are connected, but it doesn't fit well into the timeline we have.

It's not what I expected either. There were too many PoVs, some subplots lead nowhere or were barely explored. It felt unfocused and rushed, it lacked the character depth I grew used to in the last two books. I'm glad we didn't get a love triangle, but I wonder why was the Shallan/Kaladin sort of attraction even there in the first place and they never even spoke of Helaran. Elhokar's arch had no resolution, he didn't even die managing to save his son or anything. Sadeas murder turned to have no ramifications for Adolin. The unmade and everstorm turned out pretty underwhelming for the set up they had. The whole trip in Shadesmar was kind of weird. The whole Dalinar Ascension was confusing. Things like that. I wouldn't say supper disappointed, but OB definitely fell short of my expectations and wasn't on the same level as the last two for me. I think people who agree with you might not want to share it because they could be worried the rest of the fandom would be hostile. Would you rather people post only praise? Avoid expressing their opinion? Have only people who praise every single word in the books be on the forum?

Rosharian year is about 1.1 earth years, because the days have 20 hours and those hours are slightly shorter than ours.

@Fineous you are not alone. I think it was actually voidbinding, we have a voidbinding chart in the first book. Also, Ishar sealing the Oathpact raises questions, too: why would Honor give them Honorblades before swearing any oaths? Why not bind the Heralds himself? Does this mean Honorblades predate Desolations? Listeners' lore has it they joined the enemy after spren betrayed them, but nahel bond became a fact after the Oathpact. There are a bunch of things that just don't add up. The cosmere is slowly taking over SA imo, despite Brandon saying he'll avoid that. Nightblood can be explained as a Blade poorly crafted by the Nightwatcher, however Azure is so out of place there's no in-world explanation for her. Hoid and the rest of the worldhoppers were already heavily hinting towards something far more than Roshar, but that could have been swept under the rug for most readers. Vivenna on the other hand can't, at least I do not see how all her out-of-placeness can be explained away without making the readers cosmerely aware unless she's not explained at all just like Hoid and all the cosmere mail, which makes even less sense - who in Damnation provides planetary postal service? All that magic and a bunch of heavily invested beings are communication via letters?

It broke my heart how happy he was to have given millennia for people to progress in peace. Humanity doesn't deserve Taln.

Hm, I'm more thinking in the lines calling what people did in their previous world surgebinding is simply incorrect, yet another piece of information distorted through time. Remember Honor didn't expect spren imitating the Honorblades and the Oathpact was Ishar binding the Heralds and Honor, thus he already had his Honorblade and was familiar enough with his powers. He also bounded (binded? whatever) surgebinders to oaths eventually (heavily hinted, not explicitly said if I recall correctly) and I doubt Honor couldn't have done it himself if he wanted to. However, it was said Honor's death changes things... There are some elements from what we learned that just don't fit in my opinion, but I need more time to think about it.

It was a good book, but I can’t say I liked it as much as the previous two. There were too many different PoVs, which was distracting. So much happened and so much information was dumped that there wasn’t much time to explore the emotions and inner world of the cast, which was something I enjoyed very much in WoK and WoR. Too many different PoVs, I liked them individually speaking, but I feel it was too much for an already complicated book with a large cast, not enough time for everybody. I see I’m not the only one who was kind of underwhelmed by the secret that broke the Radiants. How many millennia until someone counts as native, seriously? Well, I’m not surprised some people are actually fighting FOR Odium (I hate you, Moash, I hope Adolin stabs you in the eye, too), I bet if our world was invaded by aliens there would be idiots helping them, too. However I think KR were more worried about destroying Roshar with their powers, which is why they killed their spren so no one could bond them. But surgebinding became possible on Roshar, humans could have only used voidbinding in their original planet, so there should be more to this. Also, if Ishi created the Oathpact, he must have already had an Honorblade and why would someone so keen on oaths like Honor not want an oathpact first? I feel there’s something missing here, too. I was annoyed how Nale switched to the enemy, he must have known humans didn’t originate from Roshar. I realize he’s getting worse, but come on… Yet he’ll still train Szeth OK… I like how the alethi slowly learn to respect other cultures. Dalinar’s instant language hack was interesting, I wonder what else he could do. His Ascension is something I need to reread, because I didn’t quite get how he managed to take a piece of Honor. I wonder how this changes his powers? Kal couldn’t say the next oath, but that was alright. I wonder if SB ideal quest is mirrored by other orders? Elhokar dying before actually succeeding at anything was disappointing. Especially after it was confirmed he had attracted a Cryptic. Why didn’t Dalinar lend him Jezrien’s honorblade like he initially thought? Elhokar would have had weeks to practice like the squires did. The have-you-seen-me guy Szeth met is now confirmed Jezrien. And.. dead. So dead. What was that knife and why can’t the fused use it? I almost feel bad for Shalladin shippers. One of the unmade wanting to switch sides is interesting. Still no idea what on Roshar the GB want. Wow, Kal did buy Syl a sprenhat like Lopen suggested Adolin is so reviving Maya next book Taln being glad humanity had millennia to progress – oh, Taln… Humanity doesn’t deserve you. Journey before pancakes – I can see a future conflict between Lopen and Lift here