tigvsben

I bet with enough training there isn't really a projectile that he couldn't stop!  He has the advantage of being able to use a Reverse Lashing to draw it in at least somewhat, and I would be surprised if his control over atmospheric pressure couldn't be applied to help slow the projectile to a reasonable enough speed that his Stormlight enhanced strength could stop it.

Yeah that was one of the most annoying things for me. Syl has had access to thought and been with Kaladin for probably half a year and here comes Pattern who knows it all and even more so than Syl in some cases. He didn't even run away when he mentioned Odium. As far as we know, Syl can't even speak the name.

To be fair, while Syl has been with Kaladin for a few months now Pattern has been with Shallan for more than 6 years! True he got rusty during the time she blocked her memories of him, but it doesn't necessarily put him back at the same starting place as the more recently arrived Syl.

Just a misunderstanding.  While Shallash is the patron Herald of the Lightweavers, one of the chapters from the in-book Words of Radiance mentioned that it was Ishar who came up with the entire idea of organizing surgebinders into the Knights Radiant making all Knights "his" in this respect.

 

HE COMES FOR YOU, LITTLE TRAITOR. I AM SORRY.

Something rose before Kaladin. A second storm, one of red lightning, so enormous as to make the continent—the world itself—into nothing by comparison. Everything fell into its shadow.

I AM SORRY, the Stormfather said. HE COMES.

 

Syl spun about, twisting this way, then that. Her small eyes opened wide. “He’s coming.”

“Who? The storm?”

“The one who hates,” she whispered. “The darkness inside. Kaladin, he’s watching. Something’s going to happen. Something bad.”

You have to imagine they had *some* sort of edge that we haven't seen yet, otherwise I can't even imagine why they bothered showing up to fight in the Desolations other than to relieve the boredom between being tortured.  Despite years of experience wielding the powers, Szeth wasn't a match for Kaladin, an unarmored Radiant who is only on his third ideal.  And at the height of their powers there were thousands of Radiants...kind of hard to see what a Herald is bringing to the table under those circumstances unless there is more to them than just the Honorblade.

If nothing else, Harmony isn't old enough to be the letter recipient!  The pen pals are familiar with the original Shard holders and the shattering of Adonalsium, while Harmony is a relatively recent addition to the cosmic stage.  Also, shouldn't this be flagged Mistborn spoilers?

Yes, but does immune to the storms mean immune to water currents and drowning?

Maybe? Do we have any reason to believe that Parshendi, in any form, have a need for air comparable to humans?  Maybe Stormform added gills in addition to carapace armor!

They got that memo! At the end of WoR they assume the Everstorm will circle the planet and hit Shinovar, and speculate that the Highstorm is similarly one storm constantly rounding the globe rather than than a series of storms being spawned from the Origin.

I was thinking in the same vein. The Words of Radiance excerpts about each order indicated both the Skybreaker's ability to divide the innocent from the guilty as well as Lightweavers memory talents as being unusual and unexplained by any particular surge or spren. Perhaps Kaladin's instinctive grasp of the sky, immediately catching up to Szeth despite the experience gap, is another example of these order-specific gifts?

While we're distracted by proper allocation of Shardblades into various weapon slots let me cast my vote for summoning a bonded spren as a Shardarrow for use with with a Shardbow. There's no way you wouldn't ruin someone's day firing a shard at them from a hundred yards away before re-summoning it for round two. Heck, if they stood in a nice column you could wreck everyone's day with one shot.

Yeah, I don't know what sort of temper tantrum the Stormfather would throw if Dalinar suggested wielding the Honorblade, but the spren don't treat it as an abomination, just a dangerous and powerful tool.

 

The Honorblades are what we are based on, Kaladin. Honor gave these to men, and those men gained powers from them. Spren figured out what He’d done, and we imitated it. We’re bits of His power, after all, like this sword. Be careful with it. It is a treasure.

So whereas the dead Shardblades are abominations, the Honorblade is a treasure

I'm with those who don't see it. The blue patch looks way to flat to be any sort of uncut crystal, not to mention Kaladin's fingers aren't even grasping it. It looks more like he's touching the ground and making it glow to be sure everyone looking at the cover knows he is magic.

Besides that, I can't figure out what role the gem would have played in any original draft. Thanks to his massively more efficient Stormlight usage, Kaladin had the total advantage in that fight. The only reason Szeth lasted as long as he did was the Highstorm giving them both infinite Stormlight. If the Highstorm weren't a plot element, bringing a large supply of Stormlight to the fight would really only benefit Szeth.

While it would actually make him slightly more of a jerk than he already comes across, I guess it's remotely possible Nalan could be resurrecting the potential Radiants he kills in an attempt to sever their bond to their Spren without actually permanently removing them. You'd think he'd manage to be a little bit less grim and terrible to people if this were the case, though.

I think maybe having 3 major characters in one book "die" only to show up again by the final page has started to numb our sense of reasonable expectation of death. Oh, and don't forget Eshonai's already filled out her application for the Not-Quite-Dead society. That said, I can't see any reason Helaran would still be alive. The only reason we don't have more solid confirmation of his death is that no one at the battlefield had any reason to recognize him at that time; everyone who seems to have since investigated seems to have come to the same conclusion. If nothing else you'd think Mraize would have thought to use any clue on Helaran's survival as part of his sweetening of the pot when tempting Shallan into joining the Ghostbloods.

While it's entirely possible (and very Sandersonian) that the KR are in some way tied to the desolation, I don't think you need to make this assumption to explain Mr. T's contingency planning regarding them. His entire mission is to follow the Diagram to save the world at all costs, while the fundamental code of the KR is to stick to the honorable path regardless of the outcome. While they could make useful tools/allies during the Desolation, if it really turned out to be the case that the only way to save humanity is to make the sacrifices the Diagram requires, the KR would inevitably become Mr. T's enemy, even if the cost is the extinction of humanity. He'd have to be preparing for that possibility.

I think the "unable to bond" an Honorblade answer relates to the blades being fundamentally tied to the existence of their corresponding Herald.  We were told in the prelude that the death of a Herald would cause their blade to disappear from the world.  Whatever mechanic allows Szeth to summon and dismiss the blade probably doesn't supplant this fundamental bond to Jezrien.

You forgot Mr. T and the Diagram! Also the 17th Shard, though I imagine their actions are of less immediate import to Roshar than the other groups.

Ok, so we can take from that, that the time between Desolations was based on how long the Heralds could withstand their torture on Rayse. Maybe part of the reason for the 9 other Heralds walking away was that at least some of them were weaker than Taln. Maybe once the first Herald broke, that was the end of the torture, and Taln was one of the strongest. By leaving him alone to withstand the torture, it bought humanity more time than if all the weaker Heralds were being tortured as well.

In support of this, Jezrien seems to think it is at least a possibility that they won't be lying when they say the Desolations are over even as they abandon the Oathpact.  It clearly isn't their primary concern as they abandon their duty, but something about the situation at least allowed the chance, however small, that they'd truly broken the cycle.  This could refer to the possibility that Taln's will could single-handedly withstand the torture indefinitely.

I interpreted the breaking point to be Kaladin's attempt to forcibly seize Stormlight to protect himself rather than the other people currently falling.  Theoretically if he'd had his head in the game and been prepared to honor his oath to protect others he could have drawn in Stormlight and used his lashings to save Shallan and the soldiers, but instead he only thought about himself, breaking the bond and killing Syl.

I think Dalinar would be the ideal choice! Remember that the Grouchfather has decided he is too good to be a blade for Dalinar, so he's actually bladeless now.  The Honorblade would let him fly around and impress people with the Radiant's return.  Plus, we would get to see what happens when you wield and Honorblade that bestows a surge you already have naturally (adhesion).

I'm somewhat confident the gemstone reference in the second letter is referring to the time Hoid named himself after a rock that "became completely worthless" because he wore the name.  The other lines from that section of the letter refer to him naming himself Hoid after his old master and his current alias of Wit, so this is (probably) unrelated to the black crystal.

For what it's worth, at the San Diego signing I asked how far up a fully trained Windrunner with a large enough supply of Stormlight could go and was told that it was pretty enormous, as far as some of the moons.  Atmospheric pressure means being able to carry your own air supply, so they could probably even bring a friend.  Makes the Rosharan space program a lot simpler to set up.