Mistdork

How about a ShallanXStick option? That is the ultimate OTP, forever, so much better than ShallanXAnyoneElse! You know it's true, you feel it in your heart and...*breaks minds*

Seriously though, Brandon doesn't seem to like love-triangles, so I think that this might be resolved either by Kaladin finding someone else or at the very least, not pursuing Shallan while she is in a relationship with Adolin. A relationship between Kaladin and Shallan would be quite complicated, he killed her brother and their different orders (and conflicting spren) would make that relationship difficult to maintain. They might find each other attractive, but sometimes that's just it, two people find each other attracted but because of conflicting interests/opinions/pasts they never "hit it off". It happens in real life, but I can't say that it's a usual take in fiction...Perhaps this is just me wanting Kaladin to not have relational entanglements (because he's conflicted and complicated enough already) than it is me voting for either side...

Honestly, if Shallan ends up with Adolin, I wouldn't care. If she doesn't, that's fine too. I'm not really reading these books for shipping.

We probably won't know what her purpose was until "Nightblood" (the book). I personally take the information we have about the Many war with a grain of salt. It's possible that Shashara Returned for academic reasons related to Awakening, or perhaps she plays a very long game. She knew that Vasher wouldn't be the man Nalthis (and perhaps the Cosmere, who knows at this point) needed without what she did. It's hard to even guess why without more information and that will take awhile...

First off, tech levels. You guys are mistaken, at Alethkar's Shatter Plain camps Sebarial's economy (the one he was telling Shall an about when she came to his camp) is notably early industrial (think First Industrial Revolution from the late 17th century into the 18th, though I would compare Alethkar culturally to being like the German princedoms...kind of). I know they still use swords and spears, but they have things like good sized standing armies and early industrial manufacturing and centralizing government. These are all signs of a early industrial culture and economy. Yes, I know they have swords and spears, their weaponry has no gun powder whatsoever, but they don't necessarily need it because of fabrials kind of replacing certain techs like coal and that sort of thing. Also, places like Hearthstone (small towns in general) would still be medieval, that was how the Industrial Revolution worked...anyway I believe there was some WoB supporting this, but I'll have to retrieve it when I get home...I just thought I should address this first before adding to the discussion.

Also, on the whole age do Radiance age things... It might be possible that it's slows down according to the number of Ideals they have sworn. This is mainly speculation at this point, but each time they state an Ideal, the Radiants get closer to the intent of their spren (supposedly). This has benefits, and one of these might be slowed down aging. If we want to compare Endowment's Heightenings to something, we should compare it to this. With each Heightening an Awakener gets closer to Endowment, they receive a benefit because of this (as they become closer to Endowment's ideal/intent). A similar benefit (slowed down aging) might come from swearing the ideals, and really they give some benefits as we've seen already, not the same because the Investiture and the Shard's are intent is different, but I think that a comparison is reasonable considering that they are similar Investitures...

Now, I want to talk about the Heralds and the Return. Both are to some degree immortal and linked to a particular Shard. Both are Divine, if the Heralds are splinters though, I think they are passive splinters. What I mean by this is that they (the Heralds) can't use Storm light except under special conditions but do get some benefit (from the still lingering) Oathpact with Honor. One of these being immortality and the other being a physique better than other men (I'll find the white later). Considering this, and that Returned have a breathe that amounts to the Fifth Heightening, it might be that the Heralds and the Rediants (of the fifth ideal) have certain similarities like this. That is, they both get passive benefits that are similar thanks to their Shard just as an Awakener of the fifth heightening (or above) and a Returned have certain passive abilities that are similar... Anyway, before I dig myself further into this hole, sorry if this didn't make too much sense, typing from phone...

I don't believe it would be much fun if Sazed was point of view (except in some sort of Interlude), but this kind of Cosmere wide event must happen at some point (and could hopefully tie in a large amount of characters) though we might have to wait for events on Yolen before this occurs.

I honestly can't see that either, (but one or two wouldn't be too much...), just that it would be fitting with his character (or the intent of the Shard) for it to occur. It would fit thematically too, I imagine that the final part might have similar themes to the first trilogy (not the same story, just similar themes that seem to make the story fit together).

The extra Investiture probably went to make the Koloss fully sentient, considering that Preservation did this for humanity first, Sazed probably let go a similar amount when he invested the Koloss. This means he doesn't have to worry that about too much Ruin because he's used up the excess and can now be ultra-zen.

Anyway, Sazed, for all intents and purposes, fits his Shard very well..., but I think that the Third Trilogy might have to do with Sazed feeling that the Cosmere is out of balance enough for him to act (to an extent). Odium hates everyone and wants to destroy Shards, so all Odium needs to do is keep being himself to make Sazed eventual have to act...according to his intent. 

I like this theory, especially as it would throw another wrench into Kaladin's almost irrational hatred of all lighteyes (even though he is one now basically).  Wouldn't it be quite humorous if he decides to fly home looking for his parents, finds out they went back to live with Hesina's family in Kholinar, he flies there, finds the family, and it turns out they are lighteyes?  So basically Kaladin is a half-lighteyes?  That would hurt Kaladin's brain.

And we all know that Kaladin could use a bit more irony in his life. It seems like a decent theory, though it could also be that she is "just" the daughter of a rich merchant (first nahn parents) too who still had similar feelings about Lirin...

Is this like how everyone in Les Mis can be seen as in someway a character in Mistborn or at least the futile rebellion thing in French history is just all a lie and the truth is...never mind. But yeah, OP all fairy tales are really the cosmere seeping in! It's good you finally realize this...

From a person who experienced depression, Kaladin's story arc is painfully accurate. Sure, you may have been frustrated with him. Sure, it may have been boring to read. Sure, it's repetitive. But it's also realistic. My mother has told me time and time again (she's a mental health counselor) that relapse is part of the healing process. Addicts go through relapse. Emotionally sensitive people go through relapse. Depressed people go through relapse.

 

Kaladin goes through relapse too. And it's wonderfully done. I was frustrated with him a lot, but I was also frustrated with myself during depression. And to be honest, if I'd have been in his shoes, I'd have done exactly what he would have done. Including becoming suspicious of others, unwilling to listen to advice, and harboring a rather dangerous sense of vengeance and justice. We often forget just the sheer amount of crap that fantasy characters go through on a normal basis. A lot of them just shrug it off, and I hate it when they do that. Have your best friend killed off? Oh well, at least I'm alive. Have your love interest shot? Eh, she wasn't that great anyway. Get made a slave and get regularly beaten and abused? This will be a great learning experience! And so on.

 

Kaladin is annoying, frustrating, and makes you want to claw your face off because he's acting like a normal person. We often forget that when we read fantasy, because characters struggle with these sort of problems all the time in the same manner that they struggle with schoolwork. Kaladin is a real twenty year old who has had his brother killed, been sold into slavery, made to run bridgeruns, and generally had a life made of crap. And he reacts with anger, frustration, sorrow, and rage. And it's amazing.

See, I think it's more annoying to people who don't suffer from depression like that. It's a little hard for us to understand because we're not prone to bouts of depression. I was annoyed at Kaladin. I knew it was realistic but I was deeply annoyed with how long it took to get some sense into him... Even more so when he demanded a duel against Amaram; here's a smart fellow asking to fight and not giving it a second thought! Oh, was it logical? Sure, but it was just so...utterly stupid at the same time and quite, quite human.

That said, everyone annoyed me in this book at one point or another. Dalinar because he's sometimes a poor judge of character. Adolin for having his...brat like issues. Shallan when she made her comment about historians being liars (okay, this one's just silly). But everyone had their moments. Well written characters, you could say, are not ideals. Otherwise it wouldn't be as good as a series, it invokes emotion and that's wonderful.

We have this rather interesting WoB:

 

As well as this:

 

There's a definite implication that Szeth will gain some interesting passive benefits from bonding with Nightblood. (The Warbreaker annotations imply you can bond with Nightblood, and that Vasher did this, hence why he didn't feel sick when using the sword.)

I was thinking along those lines (those two WoB actually) when I brought this up, but I'm just not fast/good at quote-fu yet... though I'm not sure that completely confirms the bonded aspect for Nightblood or not (but it's been awhile since I've read the annotations for WB...BUT, I won't say it's impossible to do so, Nightblood's sentience is certainly...spren-like). Anyway, when I said we can't predict it, I meant more that we don't know what it is exactly but it's bound to be...weird/interesting/whichever.

Oh! That's why my Kindle editions have that weird...errr...fuzzy white outline thing. And honestly, it's not even gray, it's...nearly illegibly white/yellow of the screen (I have an older tan and black kindle with no color)...

Now I feel special...or something like that...

@Swimmingly: Perhaps it needs to be slightly green then. Though I think the right phrase might be "It's investedly redacted--" Nah, that...that really doesn't work...

Levian, I think we might be talking past each other. I'm sorry that I didn't use all the correct terminology to make what I meant to say make more sense...(I'm new, so I can use that excuse until Damnation freezes over...)

Also, it's Nymp. There's no 'h', I didn't choose this usename just because Nymph wasn't available.

I think this is an excellent idea, especially for people who are new (like me) or don't automatically abbreviate everything they can (I'm in the latter group). It would also be cool if it wouldn't get lost beneath everything else *cough*, that would be nice too...

Awesome, thanks Kurk! 

 

So this makes me wonder what the difference between somebody wielding an Honorblade and a Herald, other than their oaths is. It seems likely that they might have their own abilities possibly not native to Roshar, but why were they such a key instrument in winning - or surviving rather - the Desolations? Was is just their knowledge that brought back to mankind? It seems as if your average KR would be more powerful than a Herald just based off the general knowledge we have at the moment that Honorblade Surgebinding burns through Stormlight very quickly.

Just because the Heralds get the surges from wielding their individual blades doesn't mean that the blades aren't more powerful when a Herald holds it...when their oaths (to Honor) were in tact. Only Taln (if that is Taln) has kept those oaths. Considering how important keeping oaths/your word is on Roshar I kind of expect that their oathpact might have given them more power (it matches Honor's intent?)...but now I'm speculating, since we literally don't know enough to say either/or...

Unless..... OOOHH!!! Maybe, just maybe... Since it's been confirmed by Brandon that Nightblood is exactly the same as a shardblade, maybe it will be his spren! It has a consciousness and can speak directly into his mind like other bonded spren, so maybe in this world he will be able to de-materialize Nightblood and re-form it at will as well.

I guess considering NB's command is "destroy evil" he could have his own Spren thanks to Cultivation...But I don't know if it'd be bindable, though it would certainly be different thanks to NB being an awakened blade who is basically an Endowment-shard (in a sense). I can see him being up to some weird crap in the next book.

That's what I'm thinking, but I don't know if he'll get surge binding powers, maybe void binding powers??? His powers will be really unique and Nightblood will grant them. It also talks to his mind so I think it will replicate a spren. 

Pfft. I can't see that happening, not saying NB's 'good' (or 'bad'), but it's just hard to see him granting Odium-based powers (for me, anyway)...

And yeah, I realize that it's because Szeth might be Odium's champion. Maybe.

Just possessing Nightblood wouldn't make Szeth one of the Gods from Warbreaker. 

 

I'm pretty sure the Shard of that world somehow chooses certain people when they die to come back, and that is how they gain their status. They really aren't TOO much different than an average person with a lot of breaths, except for the fact that their one godly breath equals a couple hundred breaths, granting what ever heightening. It's been a while lol. 

 

Think of Nightblood like a Fabrial. It consumes the Breaths a person is holding - but only when fully unsheathed - in a similar way that the Fabrials consume Stormlight a Gem is holding. I expect that being on Roshar it will feed directly off Breaths instead, but I don't think it can use the Stormlight inside gems. I'm almost betting that just having Nightblood will give Szeth the ability to breath in Stormlight again, and the sword will consume it that way.

What do you mean by this?  The Emperor's Soul is completely independent story-wise from Elantris, there are a couple easter eggs, but that's it.

Because, if I want to talk about it independently I can't do so in the Elantris and Emperor's Soul forum without looking like an idiot (in my mind), and I feel guilty for not reading Elantris first. I can't help if I'm strange like this! It might be that I also don't have a lot of time at the moment either and already have spent much of my free-time on WoR and WB.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of this, I was also hoping for one continuous story arc. I don't know how many people would agree with this, but I found in Wheel of Time there was some awesome character development throughout the books without any time lapse. You got to see how the events of the previous book slightly changed a character, and each book would have direct impacts on their personality.

 

...there really needed to be some time-skips in Wheel. Winter's Heart is a dreadful read, and even in some of the books before it there wasn't much happening. Mind you, I love Wheel of Time, it got me into epic fantasy (while everyone else was reading Harry Potter), but sometimes certain authors feel like they can't skip ANYTHING. I've talk to some of my friends about time-skips too, and they think that time-skipping is bad story telling...It isn't! Time-skips tastefully done can add a lot to a novel...

Also, the Mistborn Trilogy had some (small) time-skips, no, they weren't ten years, but I trust that the Stormlight books will be find even with such a 'big' gape. There's probably a really good reason for it, so, I'm really not that worried.

See, the very reason I couldn't get into Elantris (I'm really, really sorry to admit it especially because I can't read Emperor's Soul without reading this...) is because it wasn't as interesting/entertaining/well-written as Mistborn (the book I bought at the same time when I first read anything by Sanderson). 'Passable' prose will bore me to tears, I know I have a problem, but gosh, it's hard reading it when you know that he's written some outstanding passages in WoR and seeing just how much he's improved even over WoK...

Those are pretty ok and dont break immersion, swears usually have a historical significance so it isnt strange that "storm off" is their equivalent for our F-word. Im guessing that Calamity altered everybodys vocabulary in Chicago city somehow.

 

Edit. I guess what i want to say is Brandon hasnt really transitioned from YA author to Adult author, while i love all his works if he went alittle bit grittier it would be much more REAL.

It's funny that I was reading a little AoL the other day and Wayne (I think) said "h*ll", and I was like, what? When did you find out what Hell was? That makes no sense! Why would Wayne even if know what that word means? He's not from earth...how does he know about that! And even with Scandriel being a kind of earth-like world/culture, I found that this piece of dialogue broke me out of the world much more than 'unrealistic' swearing. (Now you'll tell me to go and find it. Maybe in May or some time like that, once school's out...)

That said, there's a swear in England "Bloody H*ll" that's actually related to Christianity... We don't use it in the U.S., or well, it doesn't have the same condemnation as it does there...despite that America is more religious (in general) than Britain. So, you should expect these worlds with their different histories to use different words. Desolations are gruesome events, Highstorms are terrible if you're out in them. It is gritty in context. Different cultures; different swears, it's that way on earth too.

(I'm sorry for swear, really!)

Anyway, the one thing that bugs me is whenever some-splinter/shard speaks in all caps. This isn't Sanderson's fault, it's Discworld's...whenever I see it, I think of Death (or name-your-Disc-personal/god-here)! Bah, I just wish he would drop the practice, it feels cheesy and makes the scene's impact less effective (on me) than it would without that...

Also, I hate ASOIAF because sometimes it seems that author is trying to be too gritty. Yeah, life wasn't grand in medieval times, don't get me wrong, but I could never get into those books because of the overt grittiness. 

I don't really agree with diagnosing Renarin as autism spectrum; he's socially awkward but not in the right way so far as I understand it, and doesn't seem to have any of the other symptoms. I don't know if he'd fit any formal diagnosis for a mental illness, but he's high nobility in a warrior culture and can't fight and his respected role models yell at him for trying. He clearly has serious self-esteem issues resulting from that.

 

Dalinar has apparently mellowed out considerably, but used to revel in violence and considered killing his brother over Navani.

Eh, I think that Dalinar probably 'broke' when he felt he let his brother die, that's always stuck out as a very traumatic event in his life and caused a major shift/change in his character as well...

I believe we have WoB that Renarin is on the autism spectrum.

 

I disagree with categorizing ASD as "mental illness", though.  Many consider it to be an unusual but not unhealthy neurotype, and you may want to rephrase.  There's a lot of stigma attached to "mental illness" that could upset some people, and detract from the point you're making.

Except that it really would depend on what side of the spectrum a person falls...If someone is too severe, then it would count, but if they're not then it's questionable...Anyways, I think something else might have broke Renarin, he did lose his mother, after all (I'm not sure when...) and considering that, it doesn't mean that his breaking is a direct result of his place on the spectrum. My real point here is that his breaking might be related, but it doesn't have to be...

Anyway, it might be that it's not just that these people are broken, but that they also match up to the intent of their spren (an individual spren that can grant the power); best examples we have so far are Syl and Kaladin, and Pattern and Shallan. However, my thinking is that they don't have to have a metal illness, just that they have to have suffered emotional trauma, since there are characters (Jasnah and Dalinar) who don't seem to quite fit the category (in my mind) of being mentally ill. It's possible that Jasnah is the way she is because something happened (and part of her personality is a coping mechanism), but it's also possible that while something happened to break her that it didn't result in an illness, just a change in characters/goals as a result of whatever happened...

Though really, why does a strong woman have to be mental to...well...be a strong woman? Seriously, while I can understand being distrustful of men (in general) might be a sign that someone kidnapped Jasnah and did certain things-for example, I'm not saying that's what happened, but it's a possibility-it would explain quite well why she thinks the things she  does about certain types of men without putting blame on her family. Still, the whole "doesn't like men" thing might just be a general fear of being forced to settle and not pursue her research...She would hate that..., and, hey, there's nothing wrong with smart women pursuing other things for then men and babies. Perhaps it's just me, but I hope she stays single. *shrug; might be slightly grumpy today*

Relatively eternal life and extra-human conditions seem pretty nice, but then there's the problem of being consumed by that shard's intent. Sazed seems to have gotten off lightly, with his pair of opposing shards allowing him to remain in control, from what I can tell. 

But Sazed's personality kind of fits Harmony's intent...consider though that he hasn't held it that long in shardic terms (by Alloy). Give it a thousand years or so...

Anyways, I'd take up either Cultivation or Endowment. Really any shard that isn't "evil", though personally I think taking up a Shard is too much responsibility (and work). If there were no other choice, sure, but there are other ways in the cosmere to become basically immortal without losing myself in the process. Perhaps I'm merely too selfish. ;P

I need better tools to map out the longitude lines and some math (or I could print it, but no)...it actually really annoys me that we have their prime meridian, since I'm not sure how big the oceans are I wouldn't quite know when to stop counting, though a part of me thinks that it must go up to 160 (or 80) just for kicks (if I bent the map in half though the midpoint should be about at Fu Namir, how random). It almost seems like he did this to keep us occupied for awhile or some such thing...

And you all called me mad when I said Warbreaker was my favourite book. Well who's mad now, hmm? WHO'S MAD NOW?!

Soooo excited to see Nightblood and Vasher return. I kind if suspected Zahel was Nalthian during my reading, but I wasn't if I was right or if it was just wish-fulfilment. Glad to see it's the former, though I'm going to be very curious to see what happens if Nightblood falls into a group of Alethi. Those guys have such a desire for magic swords, I can see the entire army tearing itself apart.

Makes me wonder why Nalan didn't ever use it though.

Ha, so I'm not the only person who thinks WB is pretty much the most awesome thing Sanderson's wrote. Seeing V and NB in this book was like awesome (as Lift...or not). Still though, I can at least boast that I knew it was V by his Interlude (more or less because my I thought, storms, Zahel is such a grump...oh my worldhopping Vasher theory was right after all. Ha...)

I'd love to know if V has sanctioned his separation from a certain naughty sword. Maybe it's the price for him being hopped to Roshar?

 

Hm..interesting idea. Im not a sociologist to understand literary trends as consequences of sociological trends...but as far as I know fantasy became popular as a kind of escapism-tool. To go away from reality, where things are somehow more simple (more black and white), and where is more "magic" than in our world.

Not that I disagree fully be we can argue that the earliest kind of fantasy is religious (I'm not calling all regilion fantasy just certain myths are more fantastic than others). Fantasy is a work of culture, even our escapism type says something about where our culture is... Like perhaps because if postmodernism, our escapism/fantasy has become more hard because our world seems somehow more whimsy. We want worlds that have more defined rules. My real point is though that historical developments in high/epic/escapist literature don't develop in a bubble. They're still a part of history and why things are the way they are in a genre is because of trends... Anyway, I now feel like ultimate dork! Yes. *sigh*

 

 

What if you attached a coat-body to the inside of the armor/robot casing? That way, you would have a Breath-powered suit that cost only as much as Vasher used when he Awakened the clothing to fight for him, but it would be twice as deadly.

The only drawback I see is that the suit wouldn't have a mind of its own, and thus would not be able to point things out to you that you wouldn't have noticed otherwise, as Nightblood did when prompting Vasher to use Kalad's Phantoms.

Yes, I've wondered though if you could enough breathe in a nonmetallic thing and make it a IV form or not. A bit like a Lifeless but...more advance, since I think the fourth form of BioChromatic being I'd something that wasn't alive... Anyway, perhaps this could be solved by making it a skeletal Lifeless...

Haven't read Emperor Soul (there are reasons for that), but while I guess it might be possible, that is kind of a different world's Investiture and magic system's do weird things when trying to fuel things that don't exactly belong (like forging).

It would work on Elantris' world, I think, but it might not work well on Nalthis, but yeah, not exactly an expert on forging things yet.

Errr, I'm pretty sure that Vasher isn't old enough to be a Herald. If I were to hazard guess his age, it be somewhere between six and seven hundred...that's no where near the several millennia that the Heralds are by this point in Roshar history. Even if Nalthis' rotation, length of years, and days is even more out of whack than Roshar's (1000 days in one year) it really isn't that logical because Mistborn and WB happened some 300 years before ToW (or something like that, I've crept around the forum, and creeping gives you all the right answers, right?)

This doesn't mean that the Heralds and Return can't be similar beings, even if the Heralds aren't native to Roshar, they still might have been empowered by Honor when he used them in his plan to fight/trap Odium on Roshar. They're immortality (if we can call it that...) could be Honor-based, there is one epitaph that describes a man climbing up that were ten strides high and built for the Heralds [to put the Dawnshard back where it belonged] (WoK,524, Kindle Edition) and they're even worshiped as a kind of divinity/saint. If this is the case, they might even have a different form, but one connected to their Honorblades. It might be possible that the Heralds in their more...Herald-like form were taller and stronger than other men if that is the case. Their appearance would be tied to how people view them (when they know who they are...no one but Amaram and Wit know that Taln is Taln and few people seem to realize who Darkness is exactly)...