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Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE
I'm still afraid that Brandon might decide to kill of Adolin before the time skip :ohdear:

It would clear the way for Shallan/Kaladin, while also giving Shallan time off-screen to grieve and get over Adolin. Needless to say, I would not be happy about such an outcome.


The Gardenator posted:

I read that he's playing around with that Stones Unhallowed name because of its similarity to the 100% written Rothfuss book. That said, I hope the 5th book has an empire strikes back style plot with a major loss for the protagonists and much death.

Chances are good that Doors of Stone won't be any closer to release in 6 years than it is now, making it unnecessary to change the title of Stormlight 5.

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Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Torrannor posted:

I'm still afraid that Brandon might decide to kill of Adolin before the time skip :ohdear:

It would clear the way for Shallan/Kaladin, while also giving Shallan time off-screen to grieve and get over Adolin. Needless to say, I would not be happy about such an outcome.

I really hope you're wrong. I don't want any more love interest drama. I liked Shallan in Books 1 & 2 but she kind of annoyed me in 3 with the incessant, "Which part of me is attracted to who?" thing.

And Mistborn 1 is probably my favorite book, but I think I like Stormlight more overall, so I'd rather Stormlight 4 than the next Wax & Wayne.

edit; Besides, we all know Rock is going to fall for her once he sees her wonderful Horneater impersonation :v:

Olanphonia
Jul 27, 2006

I'm open to suggestions~

Torrannor posted:

I'm still afraid that Brandon might decide to kill of Adolin before the time skip :ohdear:

It would clear the way for Shallan/Kaladin, while also giving Shallan time off-screen to grieve and get over Adolin. Needless to say, I would not be happy about such an outcome.


Chances are good that Doors of Stone won't be any closer to release in 6 years than it is now, making it unnecessary to change the title of Stormlight 5.

Not that this necessarily means anything, but I was listening to the podcast he does the other day and he talked about how Adolin was an unplanned character. He didn't exist in early drafts and only appeared when Brandon decided to split Dalinar into two characters because he wanted Dalinar's personality and opinions to be more consistent.

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Olanphonia posted:

Not that this necessarily means anything, but I was listening to the podcast he does the other day and he talked about how Adolin was an unplanned character. He didn't exist in early drafts and only appeared when Brandon decided to split Dalinar into two characters because he wanted Dalinar's personality and opinions to be more consistent.

Oh no!

I would be seriously unhappy about any "murder the hypotenuse" plot. First, because the romance between Shallan and Kaladin doesn't work. And also because I like Adolin and his role in the story. I'd rather have Brandon do something truly shocking (for him [disregarding Kelsier]) and kill off Kaladin or Shallan.

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost
I really want Adolin to reawaken his Blade, and given Sanderson's love of "this is technically possible yet never been done before" I fully expect that to happen. I just hope he doesn't beef it immediately afterwards

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

Original draft dalinar actually killed elhokar which was cool.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

DarkHorse posted:

I just hope he doesn't beef it immediately afterwards
After thinking for a moment I realized that by 'beef it' you meant him dying, but for a second I thought you meant him boning his sword

seaborgium
Aug 1, 2002

"Nothing a shitload of bleach won't fix"




DarkHorse posted:

I really want Adolin to reawaken his Blade, and given Sanderson's love of "this is technically possible yet never been done before" I fully expect that to happen. I just hope he doesn't beef it immediately afterwards

I think if he managed to pull that off, the Stormfather would probably freak out a bit. Same with every other spren in the cognitive realm. It would be fun as poo poo, too.

External Organs
Mar 3, 2006

One time i prank called a bear buildin workshop and said I wanted my mamaws ashes put in a teddy from where she loved them things so well... The woman on the phone did not skip a beat. She just said, "Brang her on down here. We've did it before."
In stormlight 5, all human characters will die and the second half will star an ever growing cast of sentient swords.

MartingaleJack
Aug 26, 2004

I'll split you open and I don't even like coconuts.

External Organs posted:

In stormlight 5, all human characters will die and the second half will star an ever growing cast of sentient swords.

You joke, but that is the raddest possible future.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

Sab669 posted:

I really hope you're wrong. I don't want any more love interest drama. I liked Shallan in Books 1 & 2 but she kind of annoyed me in 3 with the incessant, "Which part of me is attracted to who?" thing.

I wouldn't worry too much:

Arcanum posted:

vanahian

And for a friend of mine and her sanity... The Shalladin thing will be something or is all in her head? Stop her pain please :D.

Brandon Sanderson

Shallan has made her choice. I wouldn't expect that to change.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 4, 2018)

I too am looking forward to a Mayalaran revival. Doubt that Adolin will get killed off between Stormlight 3 and 4, there's way too much unresolved business between him and Dalinar now!

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Leng posted:

I too am looking forward to a Mayalaran revival. Doubt that Adolin will get killed off between Stormlight 3 and 4, there's way too much unresolved business between him and Dalinar now!

I'm not worried about Adolin dying between 3 and 4, I'm worried about him dying in book 5.

But it's good to hear that there will be no Shalladin.


One thought I had recently: Warbreaker is perhaps a better source material for getting turned into a tv series? Awakening is probably more screen friendly than Surgebinding. Colors around Awakeners with a lot of breath are stronger/deeper, and the God King likely has a rainbow aura around him. You can instantly see when somebody is Awakening because something around them loses color and becomes grey. Awakening also doesn't have really flashy effects, it "just" animates things. Probably a way to save money in the special effects department. You can probably see who's a drab by looking for people who look a bit less colorful. It's also much shorter than Stormlight, and a more or less finished story. And nothing in the source material says that the people could not be Asians, IIRC. Which might have been important for the Chinese firm that holds the Stormlight rights.

New Yorp New Yorp
Jul 18, 2003

Only in Kenya.
Pillbug

DarkHorse posted:

I just hope he doesn't beef it immediately afterwards

I don't think that would happen just because it's too similar to (Oathbringer spoiler) Elhokar being killed while saying the first oath.

I'm guessing he'll wake his sword up, bond it, and then his struggle will be being an edgedancer who has trouble living up to the ideals of his order.

insider
Feb 22, 2007

A secret room... always my favourite room in a house.

New Yorp New Yorp posted:

I don't think that would happen just because it's too similar to (Oathbringer spoiler) Elhokar being killed while saying the first oath.

I'm guessing he'll wake his sword up, bond it, and then his struggle will be being an edgedancer who has trouble living up to the ideals of his order.

I think he is going to become something completely new. Spren freed from the orders basically. I just see it as how Sanderson did allomancers in 1st Era Mistborn vs 2nd Era Mistborn. He will essentially become the equivalent of "twinborn" in Stormlight Era 1 and they will become more important in the 2nd Era Stormlight as more people will bond 'dead' spren. This keeps the power levels down and provides more interesting combination of abilities.

I am very confident about this.

Henrik Zetterberg
Dec 7, 2007

WoT CoT

Hey something happened at the beginning of a book!

Mat ties Tylin up and leaves her. She is then beheaded by the gholam.

:lol: oops!

Slanderer
May 6, 2007

insider posted:

I think he is going to become something completely new. Spren freed from the orders basically. I just see it as how Sanderson did allomancers in 1st Era Mistborn vs 2nd Era Mistborn. He will essentially become the equivalent of "twinborn" in Stormlight Era 1 and they will become more important in the 2nd Era Stormlight as more people will bond 'dead' spren. This keeps the power levels down and provides more interesting combination of abilities.

I am very confident about this.


I completely agree. It's clear that Mayalaran is changing, but I don't think it's the Nahel bond as we know it. Here's my personal theory:

I think the Nahel bond is described as (or alluded to being?) a spren filling in cracks in a broken human soul, bonding the two together. Presumably severing the bond then tears away part of the spren along with their bearer, "killing" the spren in the process (speculation: this is related to hemalurgy). I don't think Adolin could conventionally bond a spren because he isn't broken. He doesn't struggle with mental illness. He even turned out pretty well, despite his family. Even if he was broken, I don't think that Adolin could be an Edgedancer, based on his personality vs. their oaths (but I could be wrong).

Mayalaran is clearly changing. She is broken, but she is reaching towards something more. Normally shardblades can be summoned with dead spren because the spren want to be a little alive again---I think Mayalaran is going further than that, since she is regaining consciousness and will. I think what is happening is the opposite of the Nahel bond, and Adolin is filling in the cracks in Maya's essence(?), and Maya herself is reaching towards something like the saying the words of an oath. Adolin's soul is already connected to Maya through the act of bonding, and he says as much in the first or second book. We know it's possible for a human to lose a bit of their soul without dying (in a few different ways), so this process might not even be as dangerous to Adolin as the Nahel bond is to spren.

Adolin has a Connection to Maya as well--he always treated her as a person, even without realizing it. This Connection has to be what is allowing Maya to change and maybe heal. Connection is able to confer surgebinding even without the Nahel bond (see: squires), so I suspect that Adolin could gain access to the surges in this way without a traditional bond. This could be a completely new manifestation of surgebinding, perhaps related to the third set of abilities that is even more esoteric than the Voidbindings mentioned by Khriss (but I havent read up on any theories about this specifically).


edit: I don't know if it's ever come up, but I can't shake the idea that the Nahel bond was inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold lacquer:

Slanderer fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Jan 31, 2019

insider
Feb 22, 2007

A secret room... always my favourite room in a house.

Slanderer posted:

I completely agree. It's clear that Mayalaran is changing, but I don't think it's the Nahel bond as we know it. Here's my personal theory:

I think the Nahel bond is described as (or alluded to being?) a spren filling in cracks in a broken human soul, bonding the two together. Presumably severing the bond then tears away part of the spren along with their bearer, "killing" the spren in the process (speculation: this is related to hemalurgy). I don't think Adolin could conventionally bond a spren because he isn't broken. He doesn't struggle with mental illness. He even turned out pretty well, despite his family. Even if he was broken, I don't think that Adolin could be an Edgedancer, based on his personality vs. their oaths (but I could be wrong).

Mayalaran is clearly changing. She is broken, but she is reaching towards something more. Normally shardblades can be summoned with dead spren because the spren want to be a little alive again---I think Mayalaran is going further than that, since she is regaining consciousness and will. I think what is happening is the opposite of the Nahel bond, and Adolin is filling in the cracks in Maya's essence(?), and Maya herself is reaching towards something like the saying the words of an oath. Adolin's soul is already connected to Maya through the act of bonding, and he says as much in the first or second book. We know it's possible for a human to lose a bit of their soul without dying (in a few different ways), so this process might not even be as dangerous to Adolin as the Nahel bond is to spren.

Adolin has a Connection to Maya as well--he always treated her as a person, even without realizing it. This Connection has to be what is allowing Maya to change and maybe heal. Connection is able to confer surgebinding even without the Nahel bond (see: squires), so I suspect that Adolin could gain access to the surges in this way without a traditional bond. This could be a completely new manifestation of surgebinding, perhaps related to the third set of abilities that is even more esoteric than the Voidbindings mentioned by Khriss (but I havent read up on any theories about this specifically).


edit: I don't know if it's ever come up, but I can't shake the idea that the Nahel bond was inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold lacquer:



Wow you put this way better than I could have while getting at the same thing. I think you are 100% spot on.

Also you should message Sanderson on reddit about that broken pottery theory that is really good. He usually replies to stuff.

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





I could see the spren bonding and order-specific oaths being more like "rules that spren follow when they grant power" more than "supernaturally-enforced laws of magic."

The relevance being that I could imagine Adolin bonding Mayalaran without actually being a very good Edgedancer, oath-wise, through a loophole of "Mayalaran owes him a solid, and bucks the rules because Adolin earned it."

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE
But spren can't "buck the rules". At least not without drastic consequences, as Syl found out when she still gave Kaladin her power even when he was violating his oaths.

Xenix
Feb 21, 2003

Slanderer posted:

Even if he was broken, I don't think that Adolin could be an Edgedancer, based on his personality vs. their oaths (but I could be wrong).

I'm curious why you think this. His protection of the prostitute in Sadeas's warcamp in WoK embodies the third oath Lift swears and his treatment of Maya and his mother's memory embodies the second oath.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
Note that the "brokenness" thing is just an in-world theory though.

Brandon Sanderson posted:

In the Stormlight Archive, there is a tradition among the Knights Radiant that certain traumas and/or psychological handicaps are effective in drawing the attention of a spren. I haven't actually said if that is true or if that's [just] a tradition of theirs. But there is a tradition among the Knights Radiant. that they have noticed something consistent.

There is something going on there, they are noticing something true. But it might not be as exclusionary as they think it is.

(source)

I'm betting on that it's an incomplete theory. It doesn't apply to everybody. Take Lopen for example.

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost

Slanderer posted:

I completely agree. It's clear that Mayalaran is changing, but I don't think it's the Nahel bond as we know it. Here's my personal theory:

I think the Nahel bond is described as (or alluded to being?) a spren filling in cracks in a broken human soul, bonding the two together. Presumably severing the bond then tears away part of the spren along with their bearer, "killing" the spren in the process (speculation: this is related to hemalurgy). I don't think Adolin could conventionally bond a spren because he isn't broken. He doesn't struggle with mental illness. He even turned out pretty well, despite his family. Even if he was broken, I don't think that Adolin could be an Edgedancer, based on his personality vs. their oaths (but I could be wrong).

Mayalaran is clearly changing. She is broken, but she is reaching towards something more. Normally shardblades can be summoned with dead spren because the spren want to be a little alive again---I think Mayalaran is going further than that, since she is regaining consciousness and will. I think what is happening is the opposite of the Nahel bond, and Adolin is filling in the cracks in Maya's essence(?), and Maya herself is reaching towards something like the saying the words of an oath. Adolin's soul is already connected to Maya through the act of bonding, and he says as much in the first or second book. We know it's possible for a human to lose a bit of their soul without dying (in a few different ways), so this process might not even be as dangerous to Adolin as the Nahel bond is to spren.

Adolin has a Connection to Maya as well--he always treated her as a person, even without realizing it. This Connection has to be what is allowing Maya to change and maybe heal. Connection is able to confer surgebinding even without the Nahel bond (see: squires), so I suspect that Adolin could gain access to the surges in this way without a traditional bond. This could be a completely new manifestation of surgebinding, perhaps related to the third set of abilities that is even more esoteric than the Voidbindings mentioned by Khriss (but I havent read up on any theories about this specifically).


edit: I don't know if it's ever come up, but I can't shake the idea that the Nahel bond was inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold lacquer:



This is brilliant and I'm pretty convinced

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

Leng posted:

Note that the "brokenness" thing is just an in-world theory though.


I'm betting on that it's an incomplete theory. It doesn't apply to everybody. Take Lopen for example.

Its probably similar to mistborn, where you can Snap from any emotional extreme, but being in hellworld means not a lot of people get ultra happy.

RC Cola
Aug 1, 2011

Dovie'andi se tovya sagain
The last chapter of Winter's Heart makes up for the entire book.

Henrik Zetterberg
Dec 7, 2007

RC Cola posted:

The last chapter of Winter's Heart makes up for the entire book.

Hell no it doesn’t. It was a good chapter though.

CoT is good though chapter 4 so far. It had like 2 really good chapters in a row, which might be a record :wow:

Slanderer
May 6, 2007
Thanks for the replies, everyone

Infinite Karma posted:

I could see the spren bonding and order-specific oaths being more like "rules that spren follow when they grant power" more than "supernaturally-enforced laws of magic."

The relevance being that I could imagine Adolin bonding Mayalaran without actually being a very good Edgedancer, oath-wise, through a loophole of "Mayalaran owes him a solid, and bucks the rules because Adolin earned it."

Torrannor posted:

But spren can't "buck the rules". At least not without drastic consequences, as Syl found out when she still gave Kaladin her power even when he was violating his oaths.

I wish I could remember some of the quotes from the books about the founding of the knights radiant (and how surgebinding was granted differently before the 10 orders were established?). Presumably human-spren bonds must have been possible without any sorts of oaths before Honor took notice, so now that he's gone, I guess maybe that's the case again? Not to mention that Odium's Voidspren were clearly able to bond to humans (temporarily), too.

I don't think that spren bonded by oaths can entirely ignore the rules, but who knows what the rules are for dead spren?

One thing to consider, though--didn't Syl warn Kaladin about the danger of human surgebinders without oaths to guide them? After all, wasn't it surgebinding that caused the catalcysm on Ashyn?

Also, consider what a revived shardblade could be: a once-dead spren, with millennia of anger and impotent fury, brought back to life and consciousness without the restrictions and limitations of a bond to a mortal human, fully manifested in the physical realm. This could be as dangerous as one of the Unmade.

Leng posted:

Note that the "brokenness" thing is just an in-world theory though.


I'm betting on that it's an incomplete theory. It doesn't apply to everybody. Take Lopen for example.

This is a good point, I hadn't considered it. Similarly, Shallan bonding Pattern to some extent before she was "broken" is a big issue. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8418

quote:

Questioner
How was Shallan able to bond with Pattern before she was broken?

Brandon Sanderson
She was open to him even before she went through a lot of that turmoil

Questioner
I thought everybody had to be broken in order to--

Brandon Sanderson
Well, that's their philosophy in-world. But I'm not going to say whether it's correct or wrong. I will imply that there are other means as well.

I feel like there has to be something huge we don't know here--it just seems strange that Pattern would bond Shallan, without oaths, to the extent that he would manifest as a shardblade. I think the Stormfather and Syl both say that manifesting like this is what opens them up to so much harm from humans, right? This is why the Stormfather refuses to become a blade for Dalinar. Unless the answer is that Shallan *did* swear oaths when she was younger, but she buried those memories too. On the other hand, the oaths might have some wiggle room--Wyndle (with a long sigh) manifested as a shard weapon for Lift before she had verbalized the third ideal.

Tunicate posted:

Its probably similar to mistborn, where you can Snap from any emotional extreme, but being in hellworld means not a lot of people get ultra happy.

The source for that is here

quote:

Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn't happen as frequently and is more difficult to control.

Snapping does have some similarity to whatever predisposes one to spren bonds, but I'm starting to suspect that the similarity is at a higher level (ie, some spiritual realm nonsense Brandon hasn't figured out yet). Allomancy apparently has a "spiritual dna" origin that requires a catalyst to bring it out, but the Nahel bond depends on what attracts a spren, and not on ancestry. I'm not really sure how to square the two, yet. Also remember that Preservation was able to snap people through his power alone (via the mists), without any external trauma (there was the mist sickness, but I think that was caused as an after effect of snapping).

Slanderer fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Feb 2, 2019

Slanderer
May 6, 2007
And while I'm thinking about stuff I don't know:

1. I wonder what passion is. I hadn't realized that it was italicized when Ruin said it, too. This seems important:

quote:

Valhalla
Ruin and Odium, they both talked about their passion, and it was italicized both times. Would any other Shards talk about passion in that same italicized way?

Brandon Sanderson
Yes they would.

Valhalla
Would any of them not talk about it that way?

Brandon Sanderson
Yes they would. Excellent, good questions.

2. There's some weirdness about aluminum on Roshar. We know it can be soulcast, but is still valuable (Shallan's father gave her an aluminum necklace). I forget if the books stated who had an aluminum soulcaster, though. Regardless, this is weird for two reasons: in Oathbringer, Hoid brings aluminum sheets to line the room with the soulcasters, and no one recognizes the metal--maybe this can be explained as "only rich people have aluminum". But the weirder thing is that Taravangian mentions legends of a light, silver metal that falls from the sky and can block shardblades.

This answer seems to close the book on that, except it doesn't add up. There aren't legends about a metal that people can soulcast! Maybe the signing question was wrong, or Brandon misunderstood (or forgot, if his continuity guy wasnt there). Or maybe the reference to the Aluminum necklace is really just an error. But something doesn't add up! The only reason I focus on it is because the power of Shards also seems to condense into silvery metal, and who knows if Honor's shattered power condensed somewhere...

3. On the topic of silvery metal: while shopping in Celebrant, Kaladin comes across that long, thin silvery chain that costs a fortune. It's definitely not aluminum, it can't be a shard weapon (since it's still a weapon) and it's rare. Either it's invested someone, or its related to some other manifestation of investiture (like the Dawn shards), or i dunno...it's made from Dragonsteel?

There's really nothing to go on, here, except that Brandon is clearly screaming that this is gonna be related to something important

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

Slanderer posted:

I wish I could remember some of the quotes from the books about the founding of the knights radiant (and how surgebinding was granted differently before the 10 orders were established?). Presumably human-spren bonds must have been possible without any sorts of oaths before Honor took notice, so now that he's gone, I guess maybe that's the case again? Not to mention that Odium's Voidspren were clearly able to bond to humans (temporarily), too.

This has some good points, but also some errors. From the currently known timeline, there were a lot fewer spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation showed up. Their investiture, and/or a mixture of said investiture, led to the formation of a lot of new spren. But even so, those spren either didn't form bonds with the Parshendi, or those bonds didn't grant the Parshendi surgebinding (the latter seems unlikely, considering Venli and Timbre). Whatever the case, there was apparently no surgebinding before humans came to Roshar. The humans then bonded with certain spren and got surgebinding. Then the Heralds noticed, and Ishar forced the structure of the Knights Radiants on them.

So Honor actually had nothing to do with how the Knights Radiants worked, apart from him being on Roshar (together with Cultivation) led to the existence of the surge-granting spren in the first place. Nohadon speaks about not all spren being as "discerning" in choosing their partners as the honorspren when discussing the surgebinder(s) who caused so much destruction. And this seems to be confirmed with the Dustbringer spren, both in the past and today (Malata and her spren not caring too much about the True Desolation, being more interested in just destroying stuff).

It's actually a good question how Ishar forced the Knights Radiants structure, complete with the various oaths, on both humans and spren. Of course, he could have killed any human who refused to comply. But he's no longer able to enforce this, and wasn't able to enforce this for the at first hundreds of years he spent on Braize between desolations. What could he have done to the spren to force them to grant powers to humans only after they swore acceptable variants of very specific oaths? And why are they still following this command, even now that he's no longer around to watch for compliance? Did they swear some kind of oath for them and all their children, honoring the Immortal Words? Why has no spren apparently bonded with a human without following the Knights Radiant model?

Odium's voidspren don't fall under this category, and are free to bond humans as they wish, if the personality types match.


Slanderer posted:

I don't think that spren bonded by oaths can entirely ignore the rules, but who knows what the rules are for dead spren?

This is complicated. As far as we know, spren (and Shards) can't break an oath or promise. At least not without breaking themselves. Syl must be bound by some kind of oath, that's why she broke when she granted Kaladin that last bit of surgebinding to save him from dying in that fall. But this ties into my earlier point: Something still binds the spren to behave in certain ways when bonding with humans. How many of the things we think are the "rules" for human-spren bonding are part of that oath/agreement/promise, and how many of the "rules" are just custom/tradition at this point is unknown for now. Granting surgebinding to humans who violate their oaths is definitely forbidden. Is bonding people only within the Knight Radiants framework also part of whatever binds spren, or is that just a custom that might be violated? Personally, I think it's the former, but I won't rule out the latter.

Slanderer posted:

One thing to consider, though--didn't Syl warn Kaladin about the danger of human surgebinders without oaths to guide them? After all, wasn't it surgebinding that caused the catalcysm on Ashyn?

Not quite. She warned Kaladin of Szeth, because he was carrying a honorblade and thus had access to surgebinding without a spren to guide him.

Words of Radiance posted:

"I can't beat him," Kaladin whispered, tears in his eyes. Tears of pain. Tears of frustration. "He's one of us. A Radiant."

"No!" Syl said forcefully. "No. He's something far more terrible. No spren guides him, Kaladin. Please. Get up."

[...]

"He can do things I can't," he finally said, opening his eyes and looking toward Syl, who stood in the air near him. "The assassin. Is it because I have more Words to speak?"

"There are more," Syl said. "You are not ready for them yet, I don't think. Regardless, I think you could already do what he does. With practice."

"But how is he Surgebinding? You said the assassin had no spren."

"No honorspren would give that creature the means to slaughter as he does."

[...]

"Any man who holds this weapon will become a Windrunner," Syl explained, looking back at Kaladin. "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's a treasure."

"So the assassin wasn't a Radiant."

"No. But Kaladin, you have to understand. With this sword, someone can do what you can, but without the... checks a spren requires."

This also might give us a clue why there are unbreakable rules in the human-spren interactions. Spren imitated what Honor did with the Heralds. He gave them parts of his own soul shaped like swords, and this gave them surgebinding. Presumably, they had to swear some kind of oath to get those blades. Spren can mimic that to also grant humans surgebinding to humans who swear certain oaths? It would explain a lot, though the formation of the Knights Radiants structure is still mysterious.

Also, Ashyn was destroyed by "surgebinding". Whether that's just the term Rosharans used to describe any kind of investiture (like they would call Seons or Threnody Shades spren), or if there really was some kind of surgebinding on Ashyn, possibly very different from Rosharan surgebinding, we don't know yet. Some use of investiture destroyed Ashyn, that's the most we can say with any confidence right now.


Slanderer posted:

Also, consider what a revived shardblade could be: a once-dead spren, with millennia of anger and impotent fury, brought back to life and consciousness without the restrictions and limitations of a bond to a mortal human, fully manifested in the physical realm. This could be as dangerous as one of the Unmade.[quote]

Yet spren are not quite persons in the same way as humans are. They are sentient pieces of investiture, and their kind (honorspren, cryptic, cultivationspren etc.) shapes their character to a large extent. Can you imagine even an angry Wyndle slaughtering innocents? That's what Mayalaran would become, after all. No matter how angry they are, they cannot violate their innate nature (without breaking, that is).


[quote="Slanderer" post="492209590"]This is a good point, I hadn't considered it. Similarly, Shallan bonding Pattern to some extent before she was "broken" is a big issue. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8418

I feel like there has to be something huge we don't know here--it just seems strange that Pattern would bond Shallan, without oaths, to the extent that he would manifest as a shardblade. I think the Stormfather and Syl both say that manifesting like this is what opens them up to so much harm from humans, right? This is why the Stormfather refuses to become a blade for Dalinar. Unless the answer is that Shallan *did* swear oaths when she was younger, but she buried those memories too. On the other hand, the oaths might have some wiggle room--Wyndle (with a long sigh) manifested as a shard weapon for Lift before she had verbalized the third ideal.

The source for that is here

Snapping does have some similarity to whatever predisposes one to spren bonds, but I'm starting to suspect that the similarity is at a higher level (ie, some spiritual realm nonsense Brandon hasn't figured out yet). Allomancy apparently has a "spiritual dna" origin that requires a catalyst to bring it out, but the Nahel bond depends on what attracts a spren, and not on ancestry. I'm not really sure how to square the two, yet. Also remember that Preservation was able to snap people through his power alone (via the mists), without any external trauma (there was the mist sickness, but I think that was caused as an after effect of snapping).

It's clear that the actual act of swearing an oath is not required to become at least partly a Knight Radiant, as long as you live in according to the ideal of your order. Both Kaladin and Dalinar displayed some surgebinding abilities before formally swearing the First Ideal. As for Shallan, since Lightweavers don't follow the same oaths as the other orders, she could have advanced to the level that grants access to a sharblade by speaking truths. But there's certainly something interesting going on with her. It seems clear that "being broken" is not the only way to bond with spren, it just might be the most common way.

Also, the Stormfather is a unique spren who usually resides with the highstorms he sends out. Which might very well explain why he won't come to Dalinar to be a blade for him.

eke out
Feb 24, 2013



Torrannor posted:

Also, Ashyn was destroyed by "surgebinding". Whether that's just the term Rosharans used to describe any kind of investiture (like they would call Seons or Threnody Shades spren), or if there really was some kind of surgebinding on Ashyn, possibly very different from Rosharan surgebinding, we don't know yet. Some use of investiture destroyed Ashyn, that's the most we can say with any confidence right now.

canonically the main magic system on Ashyn is still the disease thing brandon has talked about wanting to write a book about ('The Silence Divine'), since the premise of that book was about the creation of a penicillin-like cure for the magic-granting diseases causing the floating cities to crash

whether that was exclusively granted by Odium, or whether Odium came later and started giving humans on Ashyn something that looks a lot more like the surgebinding we're familiar with, is I think still a mystery.

i believe he's said at least some floating cities still exist, so the fact that an entirely different magic system still exists in the Rosharan system yet we've never seen even a single person use it - especially given the amount of travel between the planets - is kind of weird

Slanderer posted:

2. There's some weirdness about aluminum on Roshar. We know it can be soulcast, but is still valuable (Shallan's father gave her an aluminum necklace). I forget if the books stated who had an aluminum soulcaster, though. Regardless, this is weird for two reasons: in Oathbringer, Hoid brings aluminum sheets to line the room with the soulcasters, and no one recognizes the metal--maybe this can be explained as "only rich people have aluminum". But the weirder thing is that Taravangian mentions legends of a light, silver metal that falls from the sky and can block shardblades.

This answer seems to close the book on that, except it doesn't add up. There aren't legends about a metal that people can soulcast! Maybe the signing question was wrong, or Brandon misunderstood (or forgot, if his continuity guy wasnt there). Or maybe the reference to the Aluminum necklace is really just an error. But something doesn't add up! The only reason I focus on it is because the power of Shards also seems to condense into silvery metal, and who knows if Honor's shattered power condensed somewhere...

the weirdness about aluminum is definitely cosmere-wide, not just rosharan. brandon's been very cagey about why it uniquely resists all investiture, but it seems to relate somehow to the killing of Adonalsium and creation of the Shards - a popular fan theory is that it might've been what the weapon was made of, and its use in that event had some ripple effects. but Brandon basically RAFOs all questions

also a lot of the intrinsic rarity/value is just that these are largely societies that are just reaching industrial revolution technology, and it's really hard to find or make aluminum until you get the right tech. it's already becoming a big problem in the Mistborn era 2 books and it becoming ubiquitous in the next era of Mistborn (that has 1980s-ish technology) is going to be a big deal

quote:

3. On the topic of silvery metal: while shopping in Celebrant, Kaladin comes across that long, thin silvery chain that costs a fortune. It's definitely not aluminum, it can't be a shard weapon (since it's still a weapon) and it's rare. Either it's invested someone, or its related to some other manifestation of investiture (like the Dawn shards), or i dunno...it's made from Dragonsteel?

yeah, this is strongly implied to be dragonsteel, but what that means and what properties it has are totally up in the air. the draft of that book that some people have read is now largely non-canon, but my understanding is that even there it didn't exactly spell out why the metal would be valuable.

eke out fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Feb 2, 2019

Evil Fluffy
Jul 13, 2009

Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.
I've always figured that aluminum is going to turn out to be Adonalsium's metal. With the reason it resists all investiture being a side-effect of Adonalsium's destruction and aluminum being the inert remnants of that dead god(?).

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost
Was that the material the knife that (end of Oathbringer) killed Jezerezeh was made of, or was it Odiummetal or dragonsteel or something else?

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

DarkHorse posted:

Was that the material the knife that (end of Oathbringer) killed Jezerezeh was made of, or was it Odiummetal or dragonsteel or something else?

We don't know yet.

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

It's probably a normal knife, but the gemstone in the hilt is special?

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE
So I've reread parts of Oathbringer again. I wonder if spren must reside in a Parshendi's gemheart to make them a Knight Radiant. If so, that would explain why the spren preferred to bond with humans. Much less limiting, Syl can travel quite a bit away from Kaladin, and the only thing he loses is his ability to wield her as a shardblade (until she returns). Which brings me to the next point, can Parshendi Knights Radiants manifest shardblades if their spren are bound to their gemhearts?

th3t00t
Aug 14, 2007

GOOD CLEAN FOOTBALL

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

Hell no it doesn’t. It was a good chapter though.

CoT is good though chapter 4 so far. It had like 2 really good chapters in a row, which might be a record :wow:
uhh... quoted for once you finish CoT. The mat chapters are gold. And the one(?) Rand chapter is good. Otherwise.... :bravo2:

Avalerion
Oct 19, 2012

Don’t they wrap shardblades in alluminium for training, too?

seaborgium
Aug 1, 2002

"Nothing a shitload of bleach won't fix"




Avalerion posted:

Don’t they wrap shardblades in alluminium for training, too?

I believe he's said it isn't aluminum, it's just some weird metal they found that works to dull the shardblades. It doesn't act like aluminum, they describe more like playdoh that happens to be metallic.

Henrik Zetterberg
Dec 7, 2007

th3t00t posted:

uhh... quoted for once you finish CoT. The mat chapters are gold. And the one(?) Rand chapter is good. Otherwise.... :bravo2:

Haha, I just hit 3 Perrin chapters in a row. So much for that. At least there's mention of Darkhounds! I think the Shadowspawn and weird creatures are the best part of the books. I want more about them, Grolms, and Raken.

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy

Torrannor posted:

This has some good points, but also some errors. From the currently known timeline, there were a lot fewer spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation showed up. Their investiture, and/or a mixture of said investiture, led to the formation of a lot of new spren. But even so, those spren either didn't form bonds with the Parshendi, or those bonds didn't grant the Parshendi surgebinding (the latter seems unlikely, considering Venli and Timbre). Whatever the case, there was apparently no surgebinding before humans came to Roshar. The humans then bonded with certain spren and got surgebinding. Then the Heralds noticed, and Ishar forced the structure of the Knights Radiants on them.

So Honor actually had nothing to do with how the Knights Radiants worked, apart from him being on Roshar (together with Cultivation) led to the existence of the surge-granting spren in the first place. Nohadon speaks about not all spren being as "discerning" in choosing their partners as the honorspren when discussing the surgebinder(s) who caused so much destruction. And this seems to be confirmed with the Dustbringer spren, both in the past and today (Malata and her spren not caring too much about the True Desolation, being more interested in just destroying stuff).

It's actually a good question how Ishar forced the Knights Radiants structure, complete with the various oaths, on both humans and spren. Of course, he could have killed any human who refused to comply. But he's no longer able to enforce this, and wasn't able to enforce this for the at first hundreds of years he spent on Braize between desolations. What could he have done to the spren to force them to grant powers to humans only after they swore acceptable variants of very specific oaths? And why are they still following this command, even now that he's no longer around to watch for compliance? Did they swear some kind of oath for them and all their children, honoring the Immortal Words? Why has no spren apparently bonded with a human without following the Knights Radiant model?

Odium's voidspren don't fall under this category, and are free to bond humans as they wish, if the personality types match.


This is complicated. As far as we know, spren (and Shards) can't break an oath or promise. At least not without breaking themselves. Syl must be bound by some kind of oath, that's why she broke when she granted Kaladin that last bit of surgebinding to save him from dying in that fall. But this ties into my earlier point: Something still binds the spren to behave in certain ways when bonding with humans. How many of the things we think are the "rules" for human-spren bonding are part of that oath/agreement/promise, and how many of the "rules" are just custom/tradition at this point is unknown for now. Granting surgebinding to humans who violate their oaths is definitely forbidden. Is bonding people only within the Knight Radiants framework also part of whatever binds spren, or is that just a custom that might be violated? Personally, I think it's the former, but I won't rule out the latter.


Not quite. She warned Kaladin of Szeth, because he was carrying a honorblade and thus had access to surgebinding without a spren to guide him.


This also might give us a clue why there are unbreakable rules in the human-spren interactions. Spren imitated what Honor did with the Heralds. He gave them parts of his own soul shaped like swords, and this gave them surgebinding. Presumably, they had to swear some kind of oath to get those blades. Spren can mimic that to also grant humans surgebinding to humans who swear certain oaths? It would explain a lot, though the formation of the Knights Radiants structure is still mysterious.

Also, Ashyn was destroyed by "surgebinding". Whether that's just the term Rosharans used to describe any kind of investiture (like they would call Seons or Threnody Shades spren), or if there really was some kind of surgebinding on Ashyn, possibly very different from Rosharan surgebinding, we don't know yet. Some use of investiture destroyed Ashyn, that's the most we can say with any confidence right now.


It's clear that the actual act of swearing an oath is not required to become at least partly a Knight Radiant, as long as you live in according to the ideal of your order. Both Kaladin and Dalinar displayed some surgebinding abilities before formally swearing the First Ideal. As for Shallan, since Lightweavers don't follow the same oaths as the other orders, she could have advanced to the level that grants access to a sharblade by speaking truths. But there's certainly something interesting going on with her. It seems clear that "being broken" is not the only way to bond with spren, it just might be the most common way.

Also, the Stormfather is a unique spren who usually resides with the highstorms he sends out. Which might very well explain why he won't come to Dalinar to be a blade for him.

The depth of Sanderson's world-building is really cool.

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Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

The depth of Sanderson's world-building is really cool.

if anything that whole thing has proven to me world building is a really bad idea

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