Sasukerinnegan

Excellent book. Loved many, many parts. I liked that the philosophical aspect was so stressed - both the Jasnah-Taravangian confrontation and the Odium-Dalinar confrontation was done excellently. My most emotional moment was when Szeth cries seeing his childhood doll and Kaladin asks him who the child was that he failed? I especially liked Syl's answer at that point. The ending was unexpected, to me atleast. I expected many possible endings, but I never thought it was possible to have an ending with such wildly different interpretations. You could literally see Taravangian as having achieved everything beyond expectations but Dalinar also may have won beyond his expectations. I didn't expect Cultivation to flee. For all that Koravellium Avast judges both Honour and Odium, she herself has repeatedly chosen to flee whenever there is a confrontation. The most predictable part was Gavinor. The Death Rattles and Gavinor being dragged to the Spiritual Realm all suggested that this was a possibility.

@Grailmoth I hold the vessels of the Shards responsible here. Yes, the Shard does override the vessel over time but the vessels do still have substantial agency. The vessels, for instance, could simply swear Oaths to reduce their harm and to prevent misuse of the Shard by present or future vessels. Like Rayse could just swear to himself or maybe to other human beings - I swear never to cause mass slaughter of human beings or other sentient species. Odium would have been bound by the oath and the oath would apply to the future Vessels and the Shard itself as well.

@feruchemicalrockband I feel like what irritates me is the egregious misallocation of responsibility in the Stormlight Archive. Like often and routinely, powerful people get off with little consequences while far less powerful people suffer massive consequences for taking/ not taking responsibility. Like it is explicit throughout Moash's arc that he is refusing to take responsibility and that it leads him to the wrong path. But Moash isn't wrong here - Most of what went wrong with Moash's life can be attributed to the discrimination against dark eyes and an oppressive monarchy. He does commit atrocities but atleast early on, he suffered injustice after injustice for which he was not responsible in any manner, except that he was poor and was a commoner and dark eyed. But this DOESN'T hold for the powerful. Dalinar actually has enormous agency and through most of the time before TWoK, misused his power committing atrocity after atrocity for which he suffers little to no personal consequences. Yes, he suffered personal trauma for murdering Evi but nothing external actually happens to him. There is never any external accountability. Even his dramatic acceptance of responsibility in OB is frankly, not very impressive - he accepts he is responsible and the pain starts fading away almost immediately. In fact, for the mere admission of responsibility, he becomes far more powerful than he used to be, nearly becoming a pseudo-deity to some extent. This is especially true for the "good" Shards. Good Shards have little to no accountability for their neglect. Cultivation twiddled her thumbs as the Singers were made into physical and mental slaves. Honor did nothing to help the Heralds suffering eternal torture. Neither Honor or Cultivation seem to have given much of a damn about the Singers once humans migrated to Roshar. The Singers literally describe the spren and Honor and Cultivation as having abandoned them. It's telling that there were Singers (who served Odium) and Listeners (who were neutral) before Aharietiam but no Singers who were aligned with Honor or Cultivation.

So it's been a long long while since I've posted, so let me start again with this post. I feel like Taravangian here is 100 percent right when it comes to this paragraph. Taravangian here is revisiting an old argument in the Cosmere. He is highlighting the same issue that was the crux of the argument between Wax and Harmony except here he plays Wax's role and Cultivation plays Harmony's role. Both Cultivation and Harmony are completely WRONG when it comes to this issue. All the Shards have de jure infinite power with some limitations in the Cosmere. They also can see the future to different degrees and have very very high mental capacities. Yet they keep refusing to take responsibility for their actions. The truth is that there is zero reason why hunger or poverty or war should exist in the Cosmere. The best example is the Desolation itself. The primary driver behind the Desolations is Odium himself, NOT the fused. Because Odium refuses to allow the Fused to seek a compromise or peace without him, the war has continued for millennia. If we adopt the Spiderman philosophy here, namely that "With great power comes great responsibility", the obvious corollary of that logic is that "With infinite power comes infinite responsibility". Therefore Shards are and should be given the greatest responsibility for all the atrocities happening in the Cosmere. Yet Brandon has in part, chickened out, when it comes to highlighting this basic contradiction. He does highlight that the primary responsibility for the Desolation lies with Odium. Similarly when it comes to "bad" Shards like Ruin or Autonomy, he has highlighted their primary responsibility for the tragedies in the Cosmere. But this is never highlighted about the "good" Shards. One particularly egregious example is how Cultivation essentially did nothing as 99 percent of Singers lost their minds and were essentially reduced to slaves by human beings once Ba Ado Mishram was imprisoned. It was Odium, who restored their Connection and healed them, albeit for the purpose of war. Cultivation is not shown to give a single solitary feck about the Singer race despite that she literally created them. There are other examples, like Harmony but that may be out of the scope of this discussion. This is particularly bad as the theme of Responsibility is one of the heaviest themes of the Stormlight Archive. Kaladin taking responsibility is what leads him to the First and Second Oaths. Dalinar taking responsibility for Evi's death is what leads him to the Third Oath. Moash refusing to take responsibility is what leads him to the wrong path entirely. Amaram refusing to take responsibility is what leads him to join Odium. Even absurd and inordinate amounts of Responsibility are expected of people. Both Stormfather and Kaladin call the Heralds "traitors to their oaths". But the oath was absurd in the first place - Why on earth would any sane individual be expected to handle torture for thousands of years? All this highlights the fundamental weakness of the Stormlight Archive and perhaps by extension, the Cosmere - Exceptional responsibility is demanded of those who are ordinary or with limited powers but very little responsibility is demanded of those who have de jure infinite power. This is especially true for the "good" Shards. This seems like a weak paraphrasing of the "God works in mysterious ways" argument. What do you guys think?

I just finished reading Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. One thing that interested me was the alleged "machine" in Torio city maintaining the shroud. The machine is essentially sentient AI. It is essentially the ChatGPT of stacking rocks. It is creative, which is why it attracts the spirits like the Yoki Hijo. It's actions are considered innovative by the spirits which is why it attracts the spirits. It also has a tendency to seek self maintenance and repair instilled into it by its creators. But it lacks true sentence. It is unable to understand the context of its creation, that it was meant to be a source of cheap energy extracted from the spirits to be used by human beings. It ends up killing its own creators precisely because it lacks this understanding. Just like say AI, it expresses innovation but only within the context of its orders of attracting investiture and self maintenance. Which is why it goes so far as to erase the Yoki Hijo's one day worth of memories and even changes the environment, but doesn't stop functioning or stop trapping the souls. Essentially this book is set in the backdrop of a semi sentient AI essentially becoming a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) and this makes it all the more fascinating. What do you all think?

The being likely isn’t the Stormfather. When Dalinar first bonded the Stormfather, his first demand to him was to discard his dead-eye blade Oathbringer. I find it odd that Gavilar would have a blade for so long and be trusted by the Stormfather. Again, the Stormfather doesn’t really feel the death of the Heralds, as far as we know. The Stormfather seems desperate for a new Herald but doesn’t seem interested in a Radiant path. The only clear theory seems to be that Shallan’s mother is Chanarach. That seems pretty much confirmed. Also, it’s awesome to see how overrated Gavilar is. He has been shown as some kind of mastermind but in this book, he gets a lot of things wrong and seems more arrogant than competent. His insincerity is clear - he clearly has no interest in the Codes or the Way of Kings. Btw, if new Heralds are so easy to create with a mere oath, why have the same Heralds been forced to undergo the oath time and again? Wouldn’t it be logical to have a new set of Heralds every 3-4 desolations or so? Again, why is only one post of Herald available? Whose post is it, since all the Heralds are alive or on Braize? One possible explanation is that the Stormfaker is Ishar, who has discovered anti Stormlight and is willing to kill himself so that a successor can emerge in his place. Perhaps that is what this scene is about - Ishar looking for a successor. But then why is Ishar hiding the oath from Gavilar? Why this over complicated approach and spren like approach to hiding the Heraldic Oaths? Edit: Another important point - At no point in the vision does Honor call for a new set of Heralds to be refounded. He calls for the refounding of the Knights Radiant. Another point in favour of the Stormfaker.

Healing in the cosmere doesn't work that way. There is a Spiritual Ideal Szeth or Kaladin or Lopen in the spiritual realm. Investiture is used to align the physical reality with the spiritual Ideal. The degree of healing even possible also depends on the (I'm guessing here) strength of Innate Investiture in the person. So Kaladin can heal his Shardblade sliced arm while Szeth or even a Squire can't even if they had a source of infinite Stormlight because they don't possess same degree of connection. Even Kaladin can't heal from decapitation unlike Hoid or the Lord Ruler because they possess even greater Innate Investiture. The physical realm is like the real world, the spiritual realm is the Ideal world, and the cognitive realm connects both worlds like a road. To access this road, you need stuff like Allomancy, Feruchemy, Surgebinding which acts like your vehicle and for fuel, you need Stormlight, metals etc. Hood is near invincible because he possesses the Innate Investiture equivalent of a Porsche 911 and provided he has sufficient Investiture is near impossible to kill.

My Q is simple - Do you like the changes made to the Kaladin Szeth fight or not?

I'm kind of fascinated by Shalash, who she is, what she wants and why she destroys her own statues. Nalans friend thinks that she is affected the most by the curse affecting the Heralds. Also Im fascinated by the Shalash meets Shallan scene thats likely to happen sometime. Also, Jezrien is a Windrunner herald while Shalash is Lightweaver herald and they're father-daughter. Also note that honorspren hate cryptics - perhaps a hint towards father-daughter relationship?

I think this is a hint towards the ending of the 1st five books. Honor is dead, he is therefore unlikely to be the broken one. Both cultivation and Odium are still alive, neither seems likely to be the broken one. My suggestion is that it is the resurrection of an imperfect Adonalsium with only aspects of honor, cultivation and odium. Even the writer of the Letter admits that the intent of the Shards represent fragments of Adonalsium's character - he claims that Odium is God's hatred without the values that gave it context.

I now believe that Honor doesnt really condemn knowing the future. Knowing what might be isnt forbidden. Speaking of it is. I suspect that the Truthwatchers obey Isaac Asimov's psychohistory's second law. For those who don't know, Isaac Asimov wrote the Foundation trilogy, where he expounded a fictional society based on the science of psychohistory (a science to predict the future.). Psychohistory had 2 basic laws - 1. That the population it applied to be large enough so as to make statistical interpretation possible (like quantum theory, where behaviour of individual molecules are unpredictable, but behaviours of large nos. of molecules are.) 2. That the population whose future was being predicted not know the results or the science of psychohistory, so that their reactions aren't altered by such knowledge. The truthwatchers seem to behave similarly, from what little information we have. They don't reveal the future to other Orders, but they keep it to themselves. Even Honor says that SPEAKING of the future is forbidden. What do you guys think?

I haven't elaborated completely about my suspicions regarding Gavilar. Its not just about the fact that Gavilar is linked directly or indirectly to all the factions in Roshar, its also about the fact that Gavilar represents himself as different things to different people. To Amaram, he is someone who is attempting to return the Heralds by returning the Desolation. To Mr T., he is the one who warns him that a desolation is about to arrive and asks him to prepare. To Dalinar, he is an honorable man. To Navani, he is a dishonorable man. He is at first sight, a devout worshipper of old Vorinism, seeking to return the Heralds and a member, if not founder, of the Sons of Honor. On the other hand, he is suspicious of Restares and suspects him of trying to assassinate him, despite the fact that Restares is one of the leaders of the Sons of Honor. The Ghostbloods consider him very knowledgeable (The masked lady says so to Shallan.) but he is taken completely by surprise by the fact that the Parshendi object to the return of their gods. He finds it surprising that they would try to kill him. At the time, Sadeas risked his life to save Gavilar but he is still very suspicious of Sadeas, suggesting that he hired Szeth. He also seems completely unprepared for possible Surgebinding assassins. My question is simply this: Who is Gavilar? What are his motivations? What are his aims? How does he hope to achieve them? What are his views vis-a-vis Odium and the Desolation?

Are you talking about Lift, the edgedancer or Lirin, Kaladin's father?

The Shinovar definitely have to have some sort of warning system in place if the Honorblade changes hands. If you think about it, the Shin are repeatedly described as a xenophobic people due to their reluctance to walk on stone. And they seem to have limited contact with the outside world. Since Urithiru's gates are closed, it has no contact whatsoever with the outside world. So they should have some sort of warning system to warn them of the loss of a Honorblade. I'm surprised they "punished" Szeth with being a truthless wielding a Honorblade. If Szeth hadn't been so insistent on upholding his oaths, he could easily have escaped. Then again nothing about the Shin makes sense. If you think about it, the Shin have the only real proof of the existence of the Heralds and by extension, the Almighty. Still, to the best of our knowledge, there is no worship of Honor in Shinovar......odd?