Aletus

While I'm glad someone finally killed Sadeas, I don't quite like the way Andolin did it. I lied. Ok. I loved it. Needed to happen, Kaladin might actually buy him a beer. But his inner monologue expressed immediate guilt over the event, as he had just murdered a highprince. I worry that he'll be found out. If he covers his ace well, all may be well and good - but I think Dalinar will know. Andolin has been the most overtly hostile towards Sadeas, except for maybe Kaladin, but I would wager that Dalinar trusts Kaladin over Andolin. Not that he doesn't love his son, but trust is a different thing entirely. Long story short, I'd hate to see Dalinar have to have his own son executed because of his morbidly convoluted honor and dignity. Especially over Sadeas. Because. If Dalinar found out and refused to out Andolin, what would that do to his oaths? What would the repercussions be for him killing his Spren, which is the father to many Nahal spren, like Syl. It could legitimately suck.

I am gonna check this out and get crackin on it - will throw a link to a google doc if anyone wants to jump in.

That's what I was driving at, not saying he wasn't very very good - just that he didn't give off an aura of blademaster to me, at the time. But time keeps a moving and he's had a lot of time to get better, especially now that the two people that could best him, to our knowledge, met their ends to him.

My only beef (and it's a small cow, I assure you) is that in Warbreaker, Vasher wasn't exactly the best swordsman around. We know he had to win duels with superiors by that bit of breath trickery, and everyone that was opposed to him kept mentioning his apparently lackluster skill. It doesn't mesh with this grizzled wise blademaster we see in WoR. Albeit - the simple explanation could go one of two ways: his enemies in warbreaker were simply underestimating him, but eh. I'm not sure, because his breath trick was really the only way to win IMO, for him at least. The easiest approximation is simply time. Everyone bashed it in Wheel of time, with Demandred's skill - finding it unbelievable (to my amazement) that he was so good. Given that there was probably a long long time between Warbreaker and SA, Vasher could have easily learned every trick in the book, and wrote it himself. Still feel bad for him not having his malignant sharp pointy friend around though. Hope he doesn't end up on the wrong end of it.

Gavilar most certainly wasn't the man everyone thought he was. He was in with Amaram and his ilk, on their dastardly plan to bring about the hierocracy (I may have spelled that wrong)

And maybe on a less oathed version, grabbing a Chasmfiend's claw and not being smushed into smuckers grape jelly? Because you can try and tell me that was simply plate, or simply plate and thrill. I won't buy it. I might buy a nightwatcher boon though, they sound tantalizing.

A lot of the other heralds dont quite have their cremlings together. It may be time for new ones. The people are slowly, and with friction, doing or trying to do what the heralds would teach, without them

You all have touched on the big reactions over and over again, but one that caught me off guard was when Shallan was with Tvalkav and the rest, the discussion she has with pattern about the table sounds creepily similar to forgery.

Yeah that part made me double-take. Also, everyone, i accept and admit openly that i was wrong about Szeths blade. I promise, we can all be on the same page about his new one :3

Nightblood sort of is a shardblade though..Not quite the same thing, but a close comparison. Sort of interesting, the number of Warbreaker tosses in WoR. Will be very interested to see how the breath/stormlight thing pans out. My baseless speculation - however - is that Nalan likely has actual Breath. I wanted to immediately jump to the conclusion that he holds the shard from warbreaker now, but that seems like it has more holes in it than swiss cheese. You know how thoughts fire off in situations like that...anyways...he is extremely cosmere aware, as long as we continue to believe he wasn't simply given the sword, to give to Szeth. As far as the orders of magnitude, I think that power comes from Nightbloods personality more than powers, although iirc they are in and of themselves far different and in some ways similar to shardblades

Same here - I just have trouble forgetting things xD

OK, not getting into the argument of the ages - but I will, for the sake of this question, pretend that Szeth's sword is a 100% confirmed honorblade. Does he know that it is an honorblade? We haven't had confirmation from his numerous PoV's. He has intimate knowledge of the physics of his power, but that likely stems from teachings, from someone in the know, or similar. He was contracted by the Parshendi to kill Gavilar, but even towards the goals of the Parshendi, wanting everyone to know they had him murdered, by their assassin in white, I doubt the few select Parshendi who dealt with him would openly share the mysteries of his weapon and abilities, even if he revealed that to them. Regardless of all that - I feel that the Parshendi knowledge of honorblades comes from somewhere else.

So, before I let this ship sail - until I have read WoR, I'm still standing on the side of chaotic neutral concerning Szeth's blade. The Parshendi revealed that Kaladin's surgebinding could very well have been an honorblade, in the prerelease materials. Unless the entire thing has been taken out of context by every reader - everywhere - that leads us to believe that the Honorblades can grant certain surgebinding abilities to the wielder, if they are not already a surgebinder. (So far as we know - there could be requirements, but that will likely be revealed later) Up until the last pages of WotK, there were only 9 Honorblades in existence, make that 10 now. That means, providing Darkness has killed more potential slayers - radiants, that Honorblades are rarer than bondspren. SO, this is the big question. Do the Parshendi simply have extremely carefully tended oral/written legends passed down through the generations concerning ye olde stuff, or how the storms did they know that Kaladin COULD have had an honorblade in order to surgebind. How would they have known the capabilities of the Honorblades, when your average Alethi or other, would simply think an honorblade to be a regular shardblade. My theories are as thus: They don't know, or only think they know - and thus, have mislead a BUNCH of readers as to the nature of honorblades. As I mentioned - they are speaking from hand-me-down lore - which, at least in our culture, gets mottled as it goes down the bloodlines. (Their song culture could be strikingly different and more Feruchemy like though) They have previously fought with Honorbearers, or have one themselves. (This one is the most baseless, but most probable in my mind. It would demonstrate knowledge without a doubt) Thoughts?

I was thinking something along this line. Maybe his boon was to forget about her for some reason, such as a breach in his perfect looking honor? and the curse then was that he didn't remember why he wanted to forget her.

"I gotta go Julia, we've got COWS!" except chull, in this case.

Thanks I realized that it was Arelon when i was finished, and added it as a note at the bottom, my computer is horrible so I decided to do that rather than go through and search and edit each one. Also thanks for pointing that out about Forging - I had forgotten that, good catch!

Oh, I probably just blundered in conveying my point. I completely agree that they are going about two opposite things. Dalinar is working to unite the nations, although is only really working on uniting the HighPrinces, which is a horrible error IMHO. Taravangian is trying to prevent it, much like Darkness. However - Taravangian is also killing off monarchs and high people the world over for some silly reason, which I can only see as a side-agenda, because - as I said - unification wouldn't be important to Taravangian, if simply preventing the desolation was his true and ultimate goal.

This is the basis for my thought process in creating this thread. It has always struck me as strange, if interesting. To the lovely curators who have been around longer than I have, please let me know if I'm pulling old weeds, so to speak. When One Dor Opens, Sel is a pretty darned unique location in the Cosmere, there's a whole heap of interesting tidbits about it. They are more cosmere aware than most others, yet it's extremely difficult to travel to or from via shadesmar, and apparently the magic systems would potentially be able to function off world, like the other magic systems around the cosmere, though only through effort. Sel's Magic is Regional This is best demonstrated through Elantris' geographical features - as we saw. When things changed, IE the Reod, the glyphish based magic stopped working, as it used Elantris like a focal point or reference, or there's probably a better word. All known forms of accessing the Dor, including AonDor, Dakhor, Forgery, and ChayShan seem to pull from an artistic or maybe more accurately, aesthetic manipulation. AonDor, using the glowing Aon's to produce the desired result Dakhor, while unknown for the most part, seems to use twisted, or deformed bones/structure Forgery, much like a less glowy Aon - using a physical medium to 'channel' the desired effect ChayShan, also relatively unknown, uses body forms, demonstrated as a form of Tai-Chi/Yoga/Ketan IIRC, The further a practitioner of AonDor traveled from Elantris, the weaker the magic. I believe that we can safely presume that it is much the same with the other forms, to different and varying degrees. My reasoning behind that stands as thus: AonDor is the subsystem that manipulates external elements the most (healing, fireballs, etc) Dakhor, and ChayShan are more about personal enhancement. Forgery manipulates external elements as well as AonDor, but appears local as well, as Forged things don't appear noticeably elsewhere (but that would kind of be the point of a forgery) Dakhor is the especially tricky element to that part of the theory, as the Monks from Elantris were quite dangerous due to the enhancements, even providing the distance from the monastery. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that the aesthetic manipulation is permanent, or at least mostly, due to the bone shaping. It's entirely possible that the closer they get to home, the nastier they get, as well. Speculation, on that part, to be honest. This also brings up an unplanned thought to my mind. The correlation between the apparent scope of the subsystems. AonDor has a vast amount of possible effects, as well as a hefty knowledge base required to use it with mastery. Forgery, like AonDor, effects both external and internal elements, via a physical and semi-permanent stamp. Also, like the AonDor, it requires a hefty knowledge base to use to great effect. Dakhor is mostly physical augmentation, mixed in with teleportation, which I argue is physical as well. It is also shown to be able to negate drawn Aons. ChayShan - like Dakhor, is about physical augmentation, mental clarity and focus. As well as seeing without seeing. So we have two magic subsystems that effect a wide array of internal and external elements, and two which are more or less physical, and individual. Anyways, this brings us to the big unknown: Focus! Do Dakhor, ChayShan, and Forgery pull from a geographical focus, like AonDor pulls from Elantris? We know that the Dakhor, at least, still functioned after the Reod, so Elantris isn't the focus there, and likely isn't for the other subsystems. Without in-depth knowledge that we don't have, this is simply speculation. I had wished for even more information on Forgery than we got from Emperor's Soul. Regardless, I am on the ship that claims that beings Brandon said that they are regional - that they do, in fact, pull from a focus, geographical or otherwise - much in the same way that AonDor pulls from Elantris. Following that, on to the important stuff. What would it take to use your specific Dor-knob on Roshar, or any other world? Would such action require a regional focus on the new world, and the glyphs or stamp, or body movements/bone shaping require adapting to the new focus? AonDor's glyphs basically are a map - and had to have the new line added to function again. Just working off of this one subsystem, as we understand it best, my first thought would be as such: For AonDor to work on Roshar, say - specifically in Alethkar, the entire system would have to be rewritten, so to speak - Aon would be the base, and outline the major features, and the modifiers would then take into account locations pertinent to the elements manipulated. Furthermore, the Dor's power would have to travel a long long way from Sel to Roshar, if that is a factor at all. This would, in my opinion, fit the description of 'difficult' as handed down by Brandon - as you would essentially have to remake each glyph to fit the region, thus any familiarity would go out the window. Think of how hard it would be for the poor Dakhor - having to retwist every bone. Lovely thoughts. Of course, the other possible method would include Shadesmar, in my opinion, which is another difficulty - beings the Dor is so blocked up that it makes it unsafe. Anyways, give me your two cents on this, poke any holes you like. I feel like most of this is fairly baseless on the speculation meter, as we don't know much of the other subsystems of Dor. Edit: Apologies for indicating that AonDor uses Elantris as a focus, Arelon is the proper focus.

I kind of think a conversation between those two would be a little more heated than doctor-banter.

Is there a somewhat decent timeline for the book anywhere? Even if Mr. T had been doing his bloodletting experiments from day one, as to say, about a year (iirc) or so before Gavilar was killed, when they first met the Parshendi, presuming (and it's a big assumption) that Szeth has been his most direct action other than the bleeding and collecting of death words, he only recently started doing that. (recently in the scope of things, I still feel like people manage to travel around Roshar unrealistically quick, but that could just be my perception of time being off) If preventing a desolation is Mr. T's end goal, a unified front wouldn't really do any good there, so presumably, his having Szeth kill all of these rulers is for a separate agenda. Honestly, out of him, Dalinar, and Darkness, Taravangian's methods seem the least productive or effective. (Also, maybe I missed something there, feel free to poke holes in that)

LOL I dunno about you - but I'll be killing that book in less than a day. I'm an addict.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure Dalinar is a zealot anymore. He quite obviously started out that way, but in my mind he is becoming more and more like Jasnah - In our world, someone is considered overly zealous for standing blindly by their faith, regardless of other factors. I definitely do not want to throw this topic into a real world religious debate, but I will make this point - when a group of scientists created replicating, functioning, multi-cellular organisms from inanimate chemicals - (they touted it as creating life from nothing) and the Vatican came back with "only God can create life," - it was a zealous statement, regardless of conditions. Jasnah's heresy comes from her willingness to adapt science and faith differently, which in the setting of the books - is quite ahead of the religions of the time. Our own religious institutions are just now grappling with the possibility that science and faith can coexist. (Please, try and refrain from attacking me for that - was not intended as an assault on the faithful readers and posters) Aside from that, something that personally throws me for a loop with Taravangian, is that while he is going about his tasks in an unsettling fashion, he doesn't make me uncomfortable. Without spoiling things from Wheel of Time, Sword of Truth, Kingkiller, here's a tagged example: All of those examples gave me pause, some more serious than others. I sat down Wizard's first rule for a week, it was that uncomfortable to read. Taravangian doesn't illicit that response from me, even a little. It may not have any implication towards the book at all, but to me - it is important.

Correct - but do we know for a fact that there is a clear difference? Could all of the desolations have been the last desolation in their eyes? I may be overlooking WoB here - in fact it's entirely likely.

This whole thing brings to mind that little pre-deathmatch chat Obi-Wan had with Anakin. "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" which is an absolute statement. Check and mate. It's all point of view, but at the same time, I really doubt Taravangian is going to end up being the Verin here, and have the right answer. He may be on the brutal, bloody right path in his mind, but to me - there's another way.

It's not impossible that he is setting Elhokar up to be some sort of Grand Emperor - which maaaay explain his needing to get rid of Dalinar as he fears a threat to the throne, where there is none. Stretch armstrong here, but I could see it.