Mistdork

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...

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. 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.

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.

...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... 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.

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... 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*

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...

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...)

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*

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)...

Could it be that the star that Scadrial is orbiting might have a different mass than our sun anyways and be a different size? I'm not sure we know exactly how big the planet itself is anyways, and as PorridgeBrick said, magic is as magic does. Or rather, sometimes we don't have all the answers and we have to live with it.

Tolkien's magic though is very...wild, mystical, untamed. Like that you find in myths and legends, it's really the sign of the era he was writing in and his background that led to it too. Magic's not use that solve that many problems, in fact, it usually creates more problems than it solves and most of the time, people without magic are fighting against evil that has a bit too much of it... I would call this recent movement towards a harder, more scientific magic system the hardening of magic in general. The OP is right in that regard. It's not necessarily bad or good, but it's probably somewhat linked to how science influences our society in general. We expect more scientific fantasy as the result of a society that seems to have less mystery (in a way), it's just...well, it fits with historical trends...*shrugs*

Doesn't Stormlight heal according to how one views themselves in the cognitive/spiritual since? If Renarin views himself as ASD and having seizures, but yet wants to see himself as a warrior (a warrior doesn't wear glasses) then that explains why only those things would heal. Saying ASD doesn't have a physical cause is somewhat silly, it has a lot to do with brain "wiring" and nerves and such... If Stormlight healed him of it, Renarin would still have to deal with years of not being about to interact with people on a neurotypical level. You can heal the physical cause, but healing/changing someone like that wouldn't change his years of experience as a person on the spectrum. That's quite unrealistic. It's called a developmental disorder for a reason, even though Renarin seems more typical now (like an extremely shy introvert with some awkward quirks), we haven't seen what he was like as a kid and without that, there's no way to know how 'severe' he actually is. You can be moderately autistic as a child, but be high-functioning, have the 'old form' of PDD-NOS, or Aspergers as an adult. Given the right environment (such as a supportive family, aka, the Kholins) and even without therapy, (though ardents might be able to give some, I guess) he would seem basically normal despite being technically on the spectrum (though, I imagine that he it's more likely he would've been lower on the high-functioning side of things than moderately or severely disabled). It's part of how this disorder sometimes works... Anyway, what really bothers me about this thread is how certain people praise Renarin for every 'normal' or 'brave' thing he does as though he is some saint for doing them. The thing is, it comes off more as babying than kindness. Is it believable that Renarin jumped down into the arena to help his brother? Yes. Was it incredibly stupid? Yes it was, it's alright to admit that Renarin can do stupid, irrational things. He's human after all, and that's what's great about his character. Not that he's overcoming a disability or is 'so brave' to face every day life because it, but that Sanderson respects this character enough to allow Renarin to grow and make stupid mistakes, he seems human, not like a paper cutout of someone on the spectrum...or a special snowflake. It's admirable. Since I have a sibling on the spectrum in the same area Renarin's in, I felt like I had to say that Sanderson's done an excellent job, not only with this, but with how he writes Adolin's relationship with Renarin. I can relate to him in this even though he mostly gets on my nerves (actually, everyone in SA does so at one point or another, except the spren and Dalinar)... --- There's a part of me that wonders if they're connected to the whole Nightwatcher-episode, but other than that possibility, I don't think so. Glys has only been in the physical realm for a short time since Renarin just recently healed his eyes. Renarin could have very mild PKU (nope, not defining it, I wrote an essay already today, its up above, that's why it's more formal than this). His seizures fit that to some extent, but it would be rather shocking (to me) if he had that instead of the more specific diagnosis of ASD and epilepsy...*shrug*

Seriously though, the Stormlight Archive has less of a chance than Wheel of Time to be made into an actual film/tv adaption (that little project has been in development heck for years) because of the intricacies in shardplate/blade, the wildlife, Highstorms, weird city-scapes, and even things like the presence of Spren (fire-spren, gravity-spren, wind-spren, etc) would make it hard and expensive to produce. It's just plain difficult, and really, if and when someone buys the rights it's a daunting ten book project that has no easy cutoff for five books (maybe, with any luck, book five will have the biggest cliffhanger ever...hehe) and to do something like SA well seems near impossible...

It might be possible, but we are dealing with complex, though human shaped, metal objects (because they've never been alive). It would be easier to encase something organic (like bones) in a quasi-mechanical arm though and make use of Breathes that way... As WeiryWriter mentioned, one of the problems would be cognitive, and I think the easiest way to overcome that issue might be by making this kind of thing by encasing a skeletal arm in bones. It probably also would work for an Iron Man like suite, though that would still take a lot of breathes to accomplish...

I want to read this book so much! Pfft. really, I was thinking of Mr. Ed...even though the horse would've been female and a kandra, but then I was like, Sazed as a hatmaker riding TenSoon! (Perhaps I can make myself look like more of an idiot today...)

Technically, there should be nine different bondable spren-categories other than the three god-spren bonded by Bondsmiths. While we don't know the names of these different groups of spren, we can infer that they exist and that the spren different orders of KR bond are from these groups...You could even say there are ten if you want to count god-spren as another group, but I think it might be possible that a god-spren could be a 'super' spren of one of the other groups. Stormfather being a...super Honor spren and Nightwatcher [if she is just a spren] being another example, probably a 'super' spren of whatever Wyndle is (mini-cultivation spren, maybe?) And yeah, if there are cultivation spren bonding people and making them KR, that might mean that not all KR bondable spren are splinters of Honor, maybe there's even a spren that combines their two intents... At the end of the book, though, I noticed that...Stormfather calls himself the Sliver of Honor (1071, Kindle Edition, when he's talking to Dalinar on top of that tower in Urithiru), not just a Splinter, this seemed a little odd. The Splinter thing seemed obvious, but being a Sliver means he is the remnant of the person called Tanavast, kind of like another entity in Mistborn, though in this case, god is dead. It's not just kind of, he is the Sliver of Honor's cognitive aspect, he admits it himself It's sad though, all Honor has left is a storming, half-mad coward (yeah, I don't think much of Stormfather...)