Pattern

This would not matter considering inheritance laws. She would have inherited, if it were possible, and a steward would have been instated to take care of the administration until Laral had become of age. The fact that a replacement was sent, indicates strongly that inheritance goes only the male line - traditionally. With Torol having been in his mid fifties I think there would be already a new generation of nephews who might not want to wait until Ialai determines an heir (if there aren't one or more brothers who would be next in line of succession). A lack of an heir in Earth history was usually followed by succession stuggles/wars, I find it very hard to imagine the very competitive Alethi society would not bring forth such.

This is true for Great Britain, in continental Europe, where Salian law was applied for a very long time (~510 - 1991), this did not happen until quite recently (this was also the reason why the Personal Union between Great Britain and Hannover ended when Victoria became Queen of Great Britain but was not able to inherit the kingdom Hannover). The last countries to change that law were Belgium and Norway in 1991. While Jasnah might have been ruled out because there was a male heir (Elhokar), Laral was not able to inherit the lordship over Hearthstone and Roshone was sent as a replacement (who she then married). So, Ialai will have to work hard to stay in a place of power - which I think she is quite capable of. She is not the type to be intimidated by gender roles.

If we take a look at Edgedancer, we get at least a hint that Parshmen there turned to a form of power: So there might still be a certain randomness to which form the Parshmen took after exposition to the Everstorm.

We don't know anything about inheritance laws in Alethkar, as far as I am aware (see further down in the thread, we know quite a bit). What you say is definitely true and even in European history there have been females assuming the inheritance dispite being not able to do so by law. This usually led to various problems, though. If Ialai has the loyalties of the Sadeas soldiers, her taking the power in the Highprincedom is quite likely. If she lacks that support, things will get interesting. Edit: Inheritance law in Alethkar is male, Laral wasn't able to inherit the lordship over Hearthstone when Wistiow died, Roshone was sent as new citylord instead.

The alternative to the enslavement of the Parshmen would have been the total destruction of the race at the Last Desolation. There had been a plan to do so, until Melishi tried an alternative - resulting in their loss of Identity and Connection. (See WoR chapter 58 epigraph) Note that only Listeners in Forms of Power (Voidbringers) were affected by this, the Parshendi who had abandoned their gods survived this unscathed.* This does not make the human treatment of Parshmen, especially the breeding part, right, but it does give the situation another perspective and a middle ground for negotiations now that things have changed. The present Parshmen have a right to be angry for the things they had to endure. On the other hand, the original plan to destroy the Voidbringers -if successful - would have meant that they wouldn't have existed at all. Nothing can be won by cultivating grudges from the past. * This might give indications to what has been ripped off the Voidbringers and why only the Everstorm with Odium's Investiture was able to heal the Parshmen. @maxal, @SLNC: I expect either Ialai to confront Adolin next week with the accusation of him having killed Torol and Mraize giving proof or to announce Mraize as new Highprince of the Sadeas princedom (she does not have children to inherit, does she?)

I always assumed (and I believe somewhere it is stated explicitly) that Stormlight, like other Investiture, first heals the most dangerous wounds, so when it happens to run out it has bought the most time possible to heal further either on your own or to get more Stormlight. Cultivation, the Rosharan goddess of - female stuff... We haven't had much about this, so it's perfectly possible that the name is prominent in Rosharan lore.

I start speculating now... The Ghostbloods helped House Davar in their try to obtain a Highprincedom. Had they been successful, the Ghostbloods would have had leverage on a Highprince and therefore a good position to influence Rosharan politics. Ialai is a new widow. We don't know how an heir of a Highprincedom is determined when there are no direct descendants. It could be that Ialai alone would be only a placeholder and she is in dire need of a husband (as it was historically in Europe for all monarchies following Salian law). Next week: Wedding ceremonies for Ialai-Mraize, Mraize becomes Highprince and the Ghostbloods have their position to influence Rosharan politics (so they can get stuff, Dalinar 31 years ago was at least quite sharp on this). I think we read a bit too much into the rare infused spheres. Stormlight is running out, but we know that big gemstones hold stormlight much longer than money-spheres. There is a whole branch of commerce where moneychangers infuse dull spheres for a small fee. So there has to be a way to infuse spheres other than hanging them out in a Highstorm. I am thinking of some kind of fabrial that has Stormlight stored in a big gemstone which is able to infuse spheres again. Of course this hypothetic fabrial is also going to run out of Stormlight when the Stormlight use in Urithiru stays as high as it has been the last few weeks. The next Highstorm is coming soon though (as long as timelines are still parallel). Sebarial's plan to tax the use of the Oathgates is also an important one. Until now, Stormlight has been used in great amounts to get people to Urithiru, dull spheres have been exchanged in a disadvantegeous ratio with full spheres, so Dalinar practically helped all people willing to come to Urithiru at his own cost. To make Urithiru economically stable, there has to be an influx of spheres for the service of instant travel. And merchants still will be able to profit from it, just think of the greatly reduced travel times in trade, as soon as more Oathgates are opened.

When did he become more intelligent? A visit to The Valley comes to my mind. BTW: No mating, yet!

This reminds me of the next Oath for Kaladin I suspected last week. Something along the lines of "I will even protect potential future enemies, as long as they are innocent." Kaladin admits to himself he has to leave the Parshmen soon to be able to pretend they are the "evil" enemy and thus to be able to kill them in a fight. Well, Kaladin is not Shallan, I don't see him succeeding in pretending. That train is gone. I am starting to believe the single release of the Prologue was made to create all those cliffhangers in the following 3-chapters-each-week releases. I rarely looked forward to November like I do this year.

Why do the ghostbloods do what they do? I guess we will know in some weeks. And I really think Mraize could be able to do such stuff. The ghostbloods do have stuff from other shardworlds, they might have supernatural means to achieve this. But wholly human machinations.

I copy-paste the newly released chapters into a .docx file, convert that to an e-book and read the chapters on my e-book reader. As a consequence, each time I get a glimpse at the end of the third released chapter. Ialai and Mraize literally jumped into my face before I could pretend not to have read it. Well, pretense seems to be fashionable right now, Kaladin also has to pretend to think the Parshmen different from humans to be able to fight them. Nothing could go wrong there... At least the Voidspren is viewed skeptically by the Parshmen. Some hope is left. The Dalinar flashback was also old stuff for me, really funny to read and with the insight that Renarin is of slight build as his uncle Toh (not Toe). Hungerspren (poor Dalinar, where the heck is the knife?...) and Shockspren make their appearance. And then still no mating for Shallan and Adolin, but a surprise meeting with Mraize. How good that Shallan is there, too. Now I think the copycat murders have no supernatural origin. Ialai + Mraize = much worse than Unmade...

Ialai and Mraize - How could we have forgotten to speculate about that? More later...

So then it's at least not a wild goose chase... But a deep decent into the rabbit hole of number theory and diophantine equations. Solutions and related stuff can be found here: https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-find-the-positive-integer-solutions-to-frac-x-y+z-+-frac-y-z+x-+-frac-z-x+y-4 http://ami.ektf.hu/uploads/papers/finalpdf/AMI_43_from29to41.pdf

Without looking further into the thread, this does not happen to be a comic version of Fermat's problem? The answer to the question would be a simple "no". The problem is obviously symmetric in apples, bananas and pineapples, so a coordinate transformation might be in order. @Elenion The problem with muscles is that to apply a constant outward force, fibers contract and relax again and again, so your body gets tired although no mechanical work is done. Your body will produce heat though, which might be indicated by you starting to sweat. The human body is energetically speaking a highly inefficient machine, only a small amount of the used energy (provided by metabolism) is in fact converted to mechanical energy. The problem with your spanned springs is solved quite easily. Force != Energy. Your springs stay deformed in your configuration, so the stored energy stays in the springs as elastic energy (well, some of it will be used to deform the spanned-in body). With a constant force parallel to a given trajectory along which a body is moved, work=force*pathlength. So without a movement, no mechanical work is done, no energy values are changed. Ok, I've got an answer for you, though I am quite late. I try to keep it short, but no guarantees. The strong nuclear force is the force holding the atomic nuclei together. It is a short range interaction with a cut-off at around 1.4fm, which coincides with the "radius" of the nucleons. As a result, the strong nuclear force is effective only with adjacent nucleons, leading to saturation effects and the easiest models for nuclei (liquid drop models and Bethe-Weizsäcker mass formula). The strong nuclear force is in some models described as an interchange of mesons (quark-antiquark pair) between nucleons. The strong nuclear force is no fundamental force but only a residual force, originating from the strong force between quarks and gluons. In an analogy, the nuclear force relates to the strong force like Van-der-Waals forces relate to the Coulomb force in electromagnetics (force between neutral molecules due to fluctuating dipole moments). The weak nuclear force plays a role in nuclear decay and the interaction of neutrinos with matter. Neutrinos only interact via the weak nuclear force, which makes them so hard to detect (trillions of neutrinos from the sun travel through our body each second, without any measureable effects). The interchange particles of the weak nuclear force are the Z, W+ and W- bosons with masses around 90 GeV/c^2 (Z) and 80 GeV/c^2 (W). These particles are virtual, that is they have a very low lifetime of 3*10^(-25) seconds. During that time they can travel a distance of c*dt=9*10^(-17) meter (0.09 fm), which is an order of magnitude lower than the range of the strong nuclear force. This leads to a very low cross section for particle interactions. Electromagnetic and Weak interaction can be brought into a unified theory.

The flat side facing to the Origin, seemingly made of a single sheet of glass, does not look like compromised symmetry. Urithiru was created this way on purpose, whatever this has been. The copycat murders show some sinister entity is doing stuff there, but that does not mean the whole city is corrupted. Shallan's problems in drawing Urithiru could be just a matter of size. Imagine someone growing up in rural Veden, with houses one or two stories high, coming to a city-tower that has 180 floors. It is bigger than her mind can grasp. Shallan already was awed by the size of the Palaneum, which should be orders of magnitude smaller than Urithiru. If additionally Urithiru is still Invested (the presence of always filled wells suggests this), this could also resist Shallan's picture taking - which is not of totally natural origin. This is out of her ordinary experience enough to create a feeling that something is off in the city.

The fact that Odium would rather play the time game than make a direct confrontation indicates that he is in a position of weakness. He has to be cunning now, since direct approaches in the past somewhere led to wounds (scars) that do not heal. He probably did not take a slow and well planned approach against Ambition and D&D, since it was quite soon after the shattering of Adonalsium. Especially about the fight with Ambition it is said that large chunks of power were ripped off, that subsequently warped the Threnodite System. We don't get many facts there though, so it is possible that only chunks of Ambition were set free (who escaped the system and died elsewhere) or that chunks of both Shards wreaked havoc. The Evil on Threnody is quite suspicious to be of Odium. Since Odium is trapped in the Rosharan system now as a by-product of the Oathpact, he would not be able to regain this part of his Investiture. I am not sure if that were possible at all even if he could travel to Threnody, since meanwhile, the ripped off Investiture would have developed sentience and an own Intent and/or Identity. This all is, of course, only speculative. We don't even know whether it is Cultivation he fears or something else entirely. There are still people around who have been present at the Shattering of Adonalsium who did not take up a shard themselves. They might now also how to shatter/splinter a shard, especially one who is not at his full power anymore. Hoid himself fears Odium, that is not to say he would not overcome that fear, as soon as Odium threatens to break free of Roshar. Frost is maintaining a non-intervention policy for now, who knows how this will change in the future as things become more dire?

Entries 143, 176: Szeth assassinates King Hanavanar two times.

@Alderant: Nice analysis of Shallan's problems, have an upvote for it (although it is one of the darkest interpretations possible). Especially nice is the finding that Shallan could come to fear that Adolin might develop to a person like her father. I want to point out that this is just a fear, though. Adolin did nothing wrong in killing in Sadeas in my point of view, though it might not have been the most clever move, it is certainly justified. Sadeas tried to kill Dalinar and Adolin before (betrayal at the tower, assassination attempt at the exploration of the Shattered Plains), the authorities (that is Elhokar in this case) did nothing about it and when Sadeas threatened to make more attemps to take all away from Dalinar (I read that as a threat for more assassination attempts), killing him in consequence definitely was not wrong and not at all influenced by Odium or an Unmade, like Shallan's father was. Well, with the supernatural copycat murders, perhaps Adolin WAS influenced by that entity when he killed Sadeas, but I think not. I also don't see Shallan's walls as negative as you do. Without suppressing her memories, she would have developed to a wretch, as she still fears she would now without her walls. So they have been good for her in the past. When dealing with pain is not possible for whatever reasons, suppression of memories is better than the alternative. I don't see a way a girl could solve those problems without help, when such is even hard and not always possible with professional help. Where I agree with you is that those very walls now fall away with her Truths she has to speak to progress as a Radiant. And they fall away too quickly. Shallan didn't really have time to address her issues from the past, since she was thrown around by new problems arising in the present. Veil was a tool, at first, to solve some of those new problems. Unfortunately, she also offered a way out of the pain, preventing Shallan to deal with it properly. And Brightness Radiant is a creation for the purpose only to avoid the pain Shallan's Truths are bringing. As I said somewhere else (earlier in this thread or another one) before, now Shallan has to learn to endure the pain, if she does not want to lose herself in her illusions. With her self-hate that could be the very thing she is aiming at, though. There is a reason Pattern thinks he is going to die when he stays with Shallan.

I don't want to talk away the severity of psychological withdrawing symptoms. The thing is, what reason is there to stop an addiction if it has no negative health consequences? (I am not saying there are no possible other consequences). Avoid the withdrawal in taking more of the substance. If it does not harm you, so why stop it? Of course then you have to provide a constant influx of that substance which can lead to locistical and economical problems. This in itself is reason enough not to get addicted in the first place. On the other hand, e.g. a diabetic who has to take insulin is also dependent on it. Withdrawal results in death sooner or later. The financial and logistic problems can be and are solved all the time, so could be the satisfaction of a rather unnecessary substance addiction - if it were neutral to your health. I also think they can. Just not to substances whose effects are healed away more sooner than later. The reward system won't be stimulated by that in a significant way. Admittedly, the Radiant could choose not to heal the poisoning at all. Then he/she would be subject to the consequences, until he/she decides to let the Stormlight heal it. I think - but have to look up later - that Investiture healing is able to heal mental illnesses - if they are perceived as such. Heck, Hoid could grow back his head if it were cut off (or his body from the head?). The Nightwatcher is able to modify the mental state of her visitors, so quite a lot is possible. Drawing in much Stormlight regularly, feeling invigorated and active though, that is the way to addiction for a surgebinder. It makes him feel good, withdrawal of Stormlight makes the world seem dull. Compare to the Thrill, that seems even worse. I guess, that wish became true.

The thing is, if a surgebinder wants to get rid of an addiction, he can use Stormlight to heal himself. It does not only heal poisoning and physical damage but also psychological wounds. It's all about perception. If a surgebinder views himself as with no alcohol problem, he will have none. A relapse would be meaningless, too, if there were no health consequences to an addiction. This of course leaves out cases where an addiction takes more and more time, like the urge to discuss things on a forum, or to have a look at your smartphone as soon as it beeps. To come back to Shallan, she really does not need alcohol to numb her pain. She already does use her Lightweaving much more efficiently than alcohol could ever be. Both things won't solve her problems though.

@SLNC: The thing is, you don't become an alcoholic from getting drunk once in a while. As you correctly pointed out, the danger lies in the habit, so a glass of wine or two each evening is much more dangerous. But with stormlight healing the consequences of alcoholism are really a non-issue for a surgebinder. So what, if Shallan decides to drink wine instead of water (sapphire wine definitely is no wine in our sense, its hard stuff)? She has to fear no health consequences from it. It would surely give a bad example, though. I want to point out that the severe problems and consequences of alcoholism in real life should in no way be applied to Shallan. She has other problems and other more or less working coping mechanisms. Stormlight healing does trivialize the problems associated with alcoholism so we really should avoid direct comparisons. If we wanted to look for an alcoholic in SA, we should take a closer look at Dalinar in the past. There we might find real consequences, which cannot be expected to be found with a surgebinder. Teft also would be a suspicious candidate to look closer to (Elhokar already was mentioned).

Without a Nahel bond the Stormlight might just heal/close the gaps in the Spiritweb, like it was able to heal Kaladin's shardblade cut. Having access to Stormlight would be a one-time thing. With Vasher though, the gaps in the spirit web are supposed to be there, so they are not subject to Stormlight healing. I would be careful to generalize a WoB about Vasher to all spiritually damaged individuals on Roshar.

I sincerely, honestly hope not. Shallan has enough to deal with as it is, no need to add this on top of it. With stormlight healing the poisoning I don't see any real danger there. Shallan has something much more potent than alcohol to lose herself in. The origin of the Evil on Threnody comes to mind.

This is nothing new. Szeth always was very introspective but he also always bowed to tradition and Shin law as being Truthless. So for years he had to kill people against his will and conscience, all because a false verdict of the Stone Shamans. That Szeth openly questions the unhinged Nalan in Edgedancer is only a small progress for him, not at all indicating he does not seek revenge anymore. He only hesitates in following someone blindly. Szeth will try not to come into a situation where he has to kill against his conscience again, This does not make him a forgiving person or even a pacifist. He has a long open tab with the Stone Shamans. In WoR, Nalan even encourages Szeth to bring judgement to the Stone Shamans, that is the main reason he gives him Nightblood. It is meant to face the enemies with Shards and powers. What is to be seen is how Szeth reacts to Nalan's change of attitude at the end of Edgedancer. Perhaps the "new" Nalan will have a calming influence on him. The old Nalan openly offered training to Szeth, to accomplish his new task (that is bringing judgement to the Stone Shamans (bringing judgement = killing for old Nalan). Edit: Oh, and the Honorblade goes to...Elhokar, if it is not stolen first. Reasons given by @maxal.

I read this passage as if Shallan doesn't know whether her communication with her brothers was real or imaginary. I have to read this part again, but if it is so, then Shallan is a step after fearing to lose control. Hoids advise from the past is still good, since Shallan has still to acknowledge at least one more truth, one which Pattern fears will make her hate him even more. I am not sure she is ready for this, just now.