Ari

It's not very clear exactly how the Fjorden magic system works, but it doesn't really seem related to sacrifice so much as... well, mutation. Domination could work very well depending on how the changes are induced. The problem with guessing shard names is that we don't really have enough information for the ones we don't already know- there are significant pieces of the puzzle missing. We don't even really know what the Skaze are, and if we knew enough about their magic system to use it for evidence here, we wouldn't have had such trouble guessing at which shard Skai held before his death and its Splintering. And yeah, you got what I meant by domination in your reply to Chaos since- it's not so much about whether the control is surrendered or taken so much as the way that control is used. Domination is where power is concentrated in relatively few hands, and accountability flows "uphill" to your superiors instead of "downhill" to ordinary people, which certainly describes Fjorden.

Fair enough, but Mistborn is the one case where we've actually discovered geopgraphic rearrangements, so I don't know if it's going to be all that common.

That's an interesting theory. It's a little more complicated than the idea that the Parshendi were simply looking for an honourable opponent, but certainly worth keeping an eye out for in future Stormlight volumes.

I considered Order too, but it doesn't quite seem to describe the Fjorden culture quite well enough, although I guess it's possible. The great thing about Domination is that it's opposite to Devotion in the same kind of way as Odium is opposite to Honour. Besides, with the way Honour's power seems to work on Roshar, binding things together through oaths and displays of allegiance, I think Order would actually encroach on that territory a bit.

Skai could also be "control" or "domination", which would make it a good counterpoint to "devotion".

The UK/World English edition is missing some of the illustrations in "hardback" (it's one of those soft hardbacks for that edition) as well, not to mention the awesome cover art. It doesn't contain a map of Shadesmar, or the magic system diagrams that I assume are printed inside the cover in the US edition. edit: There's also no map of the Silver Age of Roshar. Not sure if that's in the US edition though.

Right, I wasn't so much referring to the words exact meaning so much as the choice of approach in writing the letter. It implies a degree of knowledge and understanding of other shardholders, even if it doesn't actively come out and say it. For instance- why would you casually reference Ati being a kind and generous man to someone who didn't know him? The reality wouldn't sink home about the change because you'd have no real baseline for comparison. You'd need to go over the point a lot with someone who didn't know any Shardbearers beforehand, and Hoid doesn't do this.

Are we talking about Kelsier the Mistborn, or Kelsier the Sliver of Adonalsium?

Imagine that all other metals and allomancy powers themselves have a positive allomantic charge. Aluminium would have a negative allomantic charge under this system, and would neutralise any allomantic powers it comes into contact with- hence its immunity to pushing and pulling, and its effect as a shield from emotional allomancy. Calling it "inert" is an in-world term and could well simply be incorrect- like you, I don't see any reason why an inert metal would act as a shield. Well, Duralumin would be useless until the ferrings discover it... or until and unless another Mistborn pops up, which we know is still possible, thanks to Brandon's comments about the second Mistborn series. Given how expensive aluminium is in AoL, I doubt they would be experimenting with its alloys very much.

That could suggest the Thrill might have something to do with Voidbinding. Interesting.

It could well be that the principle of intent itself is just fine, we're just missing a couple other principles that interact with it, too.

I'm pretty sure Sazed can't be the recipient of the letter, given that it implies personal knowledge of shardholders on the recipient's part that Sazed simply would not have had. I'll stay firmly out of the discussion of whether the person the letter is addressed to is literally a reptile or not, lol.

I think Darniil is onto something here, even if imprecise wording might have caused some argument. Look at this quote: Contrast with what happened when different people held each shard: Yes, Ruin and Preservation are still separate, but being held by the same person has made them functionally something quite different than just two opposed shards. Ruin or Preservation alone could never have created anything new, we heard that quite a bit throughout the Hero of Ages, but Sazed could change the Koloss into essentially being their own creatures, and not just a simple hemalurgic creation. While we've still got a red brick and a blue brick, to extend the Lego analogy, we ended up with not only the two connected as separate bricks, but they become much more useful when connected together- as if we had holes in a structure that could only be filled by two bricks joined together, that an individual brick wouldn't be able to do anything about. It's more like instead of throwing an acid and a base into a bowl together and neutralising them, instead Sazed is holding one in each hand, and can use them for different parts of the same task. This also has some interesting consequences for the interactions between Shards and Shardholders- yes, a Shard's intent greatly influences the holder, but the holder's will, their cognitive power, can also allow shards to act in ways that don't explicitly agree with those intents without ill effect, much like the original bargain between Preservation and Ruin to create people on Scadrial- because both Shards were of a common purpose, the opposite powers could interact without harming each other. It may be that there are some holes in Chaos' Theory of Intent that need patching once we have some more information on things in general- hopefully in the next Stormlight volume, because it appears that Brandon's theory of magic is a bit more permissive than the Theory of Intent is.

I'd be wary of assuming just become we've encountered two pairs of shards that all shards pair up, or at least pair up the same way. We've encountered at least two shards that we know for sure have no partner on their world, (Endowment and Cultivation) and two where we don't know how they interact (Aona's and Skai's shards) and Brandon warned us in the past that not all shards will have as neatly opposed a relationship as Preservation and Ruin had, back when we were assuming that shards were eight pairs of diametric opposites. It's entirely possible that shards do pair, but not all of them pair up in opposition. With one pair that oppose each other and another that seem to, there's still room for there to be up to three other types of pairings between shards if we assume that there's some pattern going on.

Right, I'm inclined to agree that this isn't enough of an explanation for the overall lack of Spren. There are plenty of other theories that fill that hole. What I did like, though, is the idea that taking a windspren and bonding it to a Windrunner makes an honourspren. Presumably there are another nine types of spren that could potentially become honourspren under that system. It's certainly worth keeping an eye out to see if that's consistent with the book.

It's probably just a coincidence that there's a letter called Shash on Nalthis and a glyph called Shash on Roshar. (ie. Brandon probably liked the sound and re-used it by accident)

I'm kinda with Someoneelse on this- the two shards bonding with one person is a very different ballgame to them being bonded to seperate people, and it doesn't make sense in the same way to refer to them as Ruin and Preservation. Even though they're both much more powerful than Sazed himself, the influence they have on him collectively will either balance out, or actually have a cohesive and combined effect that's different from either shard. In either case, the name Harmony is not "just" a name, but neither is it a new merged shard- Ruin and Preservation haven't been recombined into a larger shard of Adonalsium, they're still seperate- but they're working in concert at the moment. edit: It's possible that Ruin will have a larger influence than Preservation, depending on whether the part of Preservation's power that Leras invested in creating people still influences the holder of Preservation or not. If that's the case, Sazed might not remain very harmonious after a very long time of being influenced by both shards- but that certainly doesn't seem to be an issue as of the Alloy of Law.

LOL, I didn't want to look through the book for his name, so I copied someone else on the forum, who turned out to have spelled it wrong too. I was gonna go for Taravingian, which would almost have been right. <.< >.> I think it's mostly because he has a long name and we don't get to hear it too many times throughout the book, nor does he make any major impression until near the end- at which point we don't return to him anymore.

I thought it was relatively clear from context they were talking about west of Alethela, but YMMV. There's no point speculating about other continents at the moment, as we have no idea whether they even exist, and I'm highly doubtful they would feature in the story. As the Shattered Plains are one of the east-most locations that we know of in Roshar, it still makes no sense that anyone we'd ever hear from in the Stormlight Archives would call them "west", let alone imply that they're west of Alethela.

Right, I don't think Odium is motivated to destroy Roshar or the people living on it as a whole, but it's likely to be a side-effect of whatever his real intention is.

Roshar is "almost symmetrical" in the same way that Shallan's name is- "sh" is one sound, so the only difference is in the vowels. Given that many of the modern names of places in Roshar are derived from palindromes, (Alethkar used to be Alethela, etc...) it's entirely possible that Roshar used to be Roshor or Rashar. Taragavinian being a Ghostblood is certainly possible, and it would certainly add some bad-guy cred to the organisation. I don't discount the possibility that he's working on his own just yet- Way of Kings left us with far more questions than answers.

You two definitely work very well together, it's very clear that the narrative and pictures in WoK matched well, which sadly is often not the case when illustration is included in a book. Made it really awesome just to appreciate the pictures, to be honest.

Note that the Shattered Plains are east of both Alethkar and Alethela, so if that quote is reliable, then Urithru couldn't have been near the Shattered Plains.

It's possible, but in that case you'd expect them to ALL be honourspren. It could be overflow from the spiritual realm too, or something weird like that.

"Child of Honour" could simply refer to the fact that Kaladin's nature bonded him with an honourspren, too, rather than implying that he's a Splinter. I've always considered Splinters to be more likely to be highly magical people or beings, like perhaps the Returned or the Elantrians or Seons, than just your regular magic users.