Oathbringer (Stormlight Archive)

[Dragonus45]

So who here is excited for the latest book in the Cosmere? I've been rereading the last two books and Edgedancer all week to go in with fresh details.

[Velaryon]

I'm looking forward to it, but also not sure when or how I'm going to fit it in with all the other stuff I have to read. I don't travel enough to get through the audiobook in a reasonable amount of time, and I have to read a lot of YA novels for work reasons, so I may just have to work my way through it a little bit at a time over a long period.

[Majin]

I'm looking towards it. Gonna get the audiobook tomorrow.

I only read one or two of the preview chapters, so don't know much about what's going to happen.

[Douglas]

My preorder should be showing up at my door tomorrow.

[Fishybugs]

I also preordered it...can't wait for it. Just read Edgedancer this week and really enjoyed it.

Such a great world he has built...multiple worlds, really...

[Zea mays]

https://i.imgur.com/ZfR93Ey.png

Yep. Getting my audiobook tomorrow. Something to listen to while I load my boxes on the moving van and drive across the state.
No one better try talking to me.

[Eldan]

Couldnt have this on audio. The illustrations are too good.

[Seerow]

I have ebook pre-ordered so I can start reading at midnight tonight. Then a signed and numbered copy from Weller books that should show up on my doorstep tomorrow or shortly after so I can better enjoy the illustrations and reread. And most of the next week off work with this as the main reason.

Yes I might be a little excited about this.

[Dragonus45]

Couldnt have this on audio. The illustrations are too good.

Yea that is the one downside of the E Book copies, the illustrations are hard to make out sometimes. That said with audible I happily get both.

[Pronounceable]

I can finally gloat that I read Oathbringer more than a month ago. I have the copy for actual legitimate reasons instead of being a filthy pirate too, which is a big plus. It's better than the last one in my professional opinion as a nerd. Y'all should hype up.

AMA!!!
(actually don't, cos I won't answer)

[Shadow of the Sun]

Already finished reading it. Will probably read it again before the week is out.

Book was very good. Very much Sanderson Avalanche, too.

[Dragonus45]

I had planned to post chapter by chapter as I read it but I wound up getting caught up and destroying the whole thing in one sitting.

[Weimann]

Everything's coming out this week. Oathbringer, two RPG books I've been waiting for and the new HotS patch all in the span of three days. Talk about frontload.

I got the book in my bag now, though. After work, it is time.

[The New Bruceski]

Open the book and immediately find a typo in the table of contents. That's it, pulp the run. :smallbiggrin:

[Seerow]

My hardcover still hasn't arrived (Weller! Why?!), but this is why I had an ebook copy as well. Burned through that in the first day (read nonstop from roughly 9am until about 4am, for a 19 hour binge read).

Still digesting it internally, but overall I loved the book. There were a few things I wish had been handled differently, but the overall story was there and there were a lot of great little moments as well.

Top things IMO were Bridge 4 PoVs during part 2, and Jasnah eviscerating Amaram verbally. Shallan's descent into insanity, and Kaladin failing to find the words (which I strongly suspect will relate to letting go of those you can't save) were excellent.

Biggest shock was Elhokar's death. And subsequently how well Dalinar seemed to take it.

Biggest disappointment was the fallout of Adolin confessing to killing Sadeas.

Similarly Amaram turning into a literal monster, then dying shortly thereafter. I hold out some hope that he comes back, but I suspect if anything comes back it will be the Unmade he swallowed, not Amaram as himself. It just seemed like after bonding with an Unmade he should have been a bigger deal.

Oh on that note, why was Rock so shaken after shooting Amaram? Yes, he is a pacifist, believe it is not his place to fight. But on the Shattered plains, when they encountered the Storm Form listeners, Rock took up a spear and said it was okay to fight these things. Unless I am grossly mis-remembering. In that context, why would he feel bad about killing something even worse?

[Tom Tearcamel]

I loved it, but Azure really, really needs a viewpoint interlude in book 4. Now that Szeth is working with Dalinar, Sword Nimi is bound to cross paths with Zahel, and I need to see the fallout.
The the very observant, will have noticed last book that Zahel was Vasher, and to those that did so, Vivenna sticks out like a purple panda this book. When the name Highmarshal Azure popped up I instantly thought Nalthian, but I guessed that Vasher had left the plains. But as soon as she turned out to be a woman, I laughed out loud and yelled “V!” I was 96% sure it was her, and only 5% sure it was Battar (from the Herald arch, and yes there is some overlap in that VenDiagram ) But it seems so hard to keep the cross-series stuff just Easter Eggy fluff for the Cosmere-aware minority. (Or are we the majority by now?) if I wasn’t Cosmere aware I’d assume that Szeth’s strange blade (and Azure’s) had something to do with Odium not that Nightblood is basically an Endowment Blade (Endowment is Nalthas’s (the planet from Warbreaker) Shard (a person who... bla bla the Devine that had been broken into 16 aspects bla, bla (there’s a rabbit hole you can fall into explaining this crap))

I’d like V’s sword to be invested to have the sentience of a smart dog that can follow commands and know who it’s master is. Not the terrible sapient innocence of a cheerful child completely incapable of understanding morality but with the unquenchable desire to DESTROY. Nightblood always reminds me of that old twilight zone episode with the omnipotent child. But yeah, tons of stuff like that (That I love,) feels to me that it could confuse other people.

[The New Bruceski]

The the very observant, will have noticed last book that Zahel was Vasher, and to those that did so, Vivenna sticks out like a purple panda this book. When the name Highmarshal Azure popped up I instantly thought Nalthian, but I guessed that Vasher had left the plains. But as soon as she turned out to be a woman, I laughed out loud and yelled “V!” I was 96% sure it was her, and only 5% sure it was Battar (from the Herald arch, and yes there is some overlap in that VenDiagram )

It's been a while since I read that book, is she the one who got betrayed by the comic relief mercenaries? Azure's comment about trusting people once and getting burned for it made me think of that.

Finished the book yesterday. Sanderson isn't subtle, but he weaves a good story with plenty of space for surprises and old threads to show up again.

[Mechalich]

Easter Eggy fluff for the Cosmere-aware minority. (Or are we the majority by now?)

I have to say, I feel the infiltration of Cosmere stuff - a series I have not read and don't intend to read - really undercut Oathbreaker hard. It obvious that stuff from outside this intricately developed world is infiltrating it and breaks the complex rules setup for everyone in bizarre ways.


In particular, it seems to really hurt the big reveal that humans aren't native to Roshar and effectively stole the land from the parsh/listeners by undercutting the moral quandary, since by that point it's already been revealed that there are other worlds where humans live, which offers a workaround.

[Shadow of the Sun]

As someone who is involved with the entirety of the Cosmere... to be honest, if you're not interested in reading the other books, you probably shouldn't be reading The Stormlight Archive. Sanderson has basically said that it is his epic, and a place where a lot of his Cosmere works will intersect - something that was quite obvious in the first book, when Wit started being a regular character.

I'm on my second readthrough now. Still enjoying it. I feel like some of the complaints people have had are logical, but conflict with what I think the core theme of this book is, and as such make sense when you think of them in terms of the book as a whole.

[Mechalich]

As someone who is involved with the entirety of the Cosmere... to be honest, if you're not interested in reading the other books, you probably shouldn't be reading The Stormlight Archive. Sanderson has basically said that it is his epic, and a place where a lot of his Cosmere works will intersect - something that was quite obvious in the first book, when Wit started being a regular character.

I'm on my second readthrough now. Still enjoying it. I feel like some of the complaints people have had are logical, but conflict with what I think the core theme of this book is, and as such make sense when you think of them in terms of the book as a whole.

Well, first of all, Sanderson is on record as claiming that the works can be enjoyed on their own - it's in the foreword to Oathbringer. If that's untrue that's a problem, because the Stormlight Archive is not an independent series and doesn't stand on its own. Especially given the mammoth size of the series. Wit's presence from book one didn't indicate anything to people who hadn't read other works - he could have easily fit within the cosmology of the Stormlight Archive entirely - a logical guess based on just Way of Kings would be that he was one of the Heralds.

Above all, much of the cosmere stuff, in Stormlight Archive, particular in Oathbringer where it is way more obvious than it was in the previous books, is just handled poorly. Wit is that annoying character type - the guy who clearly could tell the audience all the answers but simply won't for reasons that he will also not explain, and there are other oddities as well.

It's particularly bad with Azure during the Shadesmar parts. She makes it clear she's from another world, and then no one asks her about that at all even though they spend weeks traveling with her on ships and therefore have every excuse to press her for all her secrets. She doesn't even really refuse to talk about it, it's just that no one, including the highly inquisitive Shallan, bothers to ask.

Azure in general is a really unfortunate intrusion into the book. If she had just been a random radiant from one of the other orders as she was initially implied to be who happened to have been to Shadesmar before that would worked so much better.

[Ronnoc]

I read it the day it came out, it was brilliant and may be my favorite of the series.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Well, first of all, Sanderson is on record as claiming that the works can be enjoyed on their own - it's in the foreword to Oathbringer. If that's untrue that's a problem, because the Stormlight Archive is not an independent series and doesn't stand on its own. Especially given the mammoth size of the series. Wit's presence from book one didn't indicate anything to people who hadn't read other works - he could have easily fit within the cosmology of the Stormlight Archive entirely - a logical guess based on just Way of Kings would be that he was one of the Heralds.

Above all, much of the cosmere stuff, in Stormlight Archive, particular in Oathbringer where it is way more obvious than it was in the previous books, is just handled poorly. Wit is that annoying character type - the guy who clearly could tell the audience all the answers but simply won't for reasons that he will also not explain, and there are other oddities as well.

It's particularly bad with Azure during the Shadesmar parts. She makes it clear she's from another world, and then no one asks her about that at all even though they spend weeks traveling with her on ships and therefore have every excuse to press her for all her secrets. She doesn't even really refuse to talk about it, it's just that no one, including the highly inquisitive Shallan, bothers to ask.

Azure in general is a really unfortunate intrusion into the book. If she had just been a random radiant from one of the other orders as she was initially implied to be who happened to have been to Shadesmar before that would worked so much better.

While you can enjoy each Cosmere series in isolation, a number of them make more sense in the broader context. Especially the Stormlight Archive. At least one other Cosmere novel is basically a prequel for the Stormlight Archive novels, and the inter-Cosmere interactions are so prevalent that not having the context really does limit how much you'll enjoy it.

As I said: if you don't want to deal with the other Cosmere stuff, you might be better off reading something else. Nothing wrong with that! But it is something you have to keep in mind.

If there was only one other Cosmere novel you could read to help understand the Stormlight Archive, it's be Warbreaker, which was expressly written as a way to introduce some characters that occur in the Stormlight Archive, although only tangentially at the moment. Three characters from Oathbringer originally appeared in Warbreaker.

Also, as for the complaint that the Stormlight characters aren't asking questions of Azure... why would they? The majority of them don't know that other worlds are even a thing.

[Pronounceable]

There was so much to love. Especially Shallan, once again, gets the best damn chapters of the book. Also she'd become the go-to gal for taking on bosses for most of the book, which was all sorts of awesome, then Kal and Dalinar came from very far behind and acquitted themselves at the climax.

Speaking of bossfights: Shallan is totes the tank of the group. She walks right up to eldritch beasties and slaps them. You'd expect Kal to be tank but no, he's clearly dps, and a minion summoner to boot. His strength lies in dishing out the hurt, not taking it on the chin. Then the grizzled old veteran turns out to be the healer, with all his empathy for the unmade thing. Sure, the analogy kinda falls apart at that point. Whatevs, Shallan is the tank.

Then there's Szeth, the actual boss among our Shinies. Not only has he been the badassest character from like page 1, now he's done the gandalf thing. Not even counting sword-nimi, which might just eat Odium at some point. Wouldn't surprise me if that actually happened. Team Shiny just can't lose at this point.

Also, the buddy knight movie nobody expected: Szeth and Lift. One's an unhinged mass murderer, other's a slippery little girl. They fight crime. I've reconsidered my desire for a Lopen+Lift spinoff. There should be Lift & Szeth tv series instead.

Also also, there was so little of the potentially terrible love triangle crap and the whole thing gets wrapped up. I greatly approve.

Not much commentary so far. Prolly most are still reading.

[Shadow of the Sun]

There was so much to love. Especially Shallan, once again, gets the best damn chapters of the book. Also she'd become the go-to gal for taking on bosses for most of the book, which was all sorts of awesome, then Kal and Dalinar came from very far behind and acquitted themselves at the climax.

Speaking of bossfights: Shallan is totes the tank of the group. She walks right up to eldritch beasties and slaps them. You'd expect Kal to be tank but no, he's clearly dps, and a minion summoner to boot. His strength lies in dishing out the hurt, not taking it on the chin. Then the grizzled old veteran turns out to be the healer, with all his empathy for the unmade thing. Sure, the analogy kinda falls apart at that point. Whatevs, Shallan is the tank.

Then there's Szeth, the actual boss among our Shinies. Not only has he been the badassest character from like page 1, now he's done the gandalf thing. Not even counting sword-nimi, which might just eat Odium at some point. Wouldn't surprise me if that actually happened. Team Shiny just can't lose at this point.

Also, the buddy knight movie nobody expected: Szeth and Lift. One's an unhinged mass murderer, other's a slippery little girl. They fight crime. I've reconsidered my desire for a Lopen+Lift spinoff. There should be Lift & Szeth tv series instead.

Also also, there was so little of the potentially terrible love triangle crap and the whole thing gets wrapped up. I greatly approve.

Not much commentary so far. Prolly most are still reading.

I feel like Szeth going to Team Dalinar is the most useful thing that could have happened for them. Most of the new Radiants are fumbling their way through using their powers, and Szeth has experience with all 10 surges. His experience will be invaluable in the future books, I think.

I'm more worried about them having to fight a bunch of Skybreakers - people with Radiant powers who are highly experienced and part of an extended tradition. Seems like that could be a big problem for Team Dalinar. I really liked how Nale's response to Szeth's choosing Team Radiant was mostly just "Yeah okay, but are you sure? Yeah? Okay, no hard feelings."

More Wit will be interesting, since he seems to be inclined to get even more involved. Overall, I'm looking forward to the next book, after having read through Oathbringer twice in a week.

[Eldan]

Should I read Edgedancer first? I wasn't aware that that one existed, so I hadn't read it. And I just checked three local online bookstores, none of them have it. Which is extremely annoying, as I have Oathbringer now and it's very tempting.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Should I read Edgedancer first? I wasn't aware that that one existed, so I hadn't read it. And I just checked three local online bookstores, none of them have it. Which is extremely annoying, as I have Oathbringer now and it's very tempting.

It's not necessary, but some plot developments will seem a little confusing without the context of Edgedancer. But you should be able to read Oathbringer and then circle around back to Edgedancer to enlighten yourself.

[Eldan]

Oh, good. For some reason, I found two online shops which even claim Edgedancer is not out yet. I have some more searching to do.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Oh, good. For some reason, I found two online shops which even claim Edgedancer is not out yet. I have some more searching to do.

I got Edgedancer as part of the Arcanum Unbounded collection, if that helps. Said collection also includes a lot of useful background knowledge about the Cosmere as a whole, so I suggest it if you have the cash.

[Douglas]

Yeah, look for Arcanum Unbounded. Edgedancer is included in it, plus a bunch of other short(ish) (for Sanderson, anyway) stories.

Edgedancer happens between Words of Radiance and Oathbringer, and contains two significant plot developments - one for Lift, and another for something else. I've read through part two of Oathbringer, and neither of Edgedancer's plot developments has come into play yet, so you could order Edgedancer or Arcanum Unbounded and read a pretty big chunk of Oathbringer while you wait for its delivery without missing or spoiling anything.

On a side note, could you all please mark which part of the book you're discussing when you post spoilers? It would be nice to be able to participate in at least some of the spoiler discussion without waiting until I've finished the whole book.

Minor part one point:
Pattern as a chaperone for Shallan and Adolin was hilarious. Shallan obviously meant it just as an excuse, and then "No mating!":smallamused:

[tiornys]

There was so much to love. Especially Shallan, once again, gets the best damn chapters of the book. Also she'd become the go-to gal for taking on bosses for most of the book, which was all sorts of awesome, then Kal and Dalinar came from very far behind and acquitted themselves at the climax.

Speaking of bossfights: Shallan is totes the tank of the group. She walks right up to eldritch beasties and slaps them. You'd expect Kal to be tank but no, he's clearly dps, and a minion summoner to boot. His strength lies in dishing out the hurt, not taking it on the chin. Then the grizzled old veteran turns out to be the healer, with all his empathy for the unmade thing. Sure, the analogy kinda falls apart at that point. Whatevs, Shallan is the tank.

Then there's Szeth, the actual boss among our Shinies. Not only has he been the badassest character from like page 1, now he's done the gandalf thing. Not even counting sword-nimi, which might just eat Odium at some point. Wouldn't surprise me if that actually happened. Team Shiny just can't lose at this point.

Also, the buddy knight movie nobody expected: Szeth and Lift. One's an unhinged mass murderer, other's a slippery little girl. They fight crime. I've reconsidered my desire for a Lopen+Lift spinoff. There should be Lift & Szeth tv series instead.

Also also, there was so little of the potentially terrible love triangle crap and the whole thing gets wrapped up. I greatly approve.

Not much commentary so far. Prolly most are still reading.
All that praise for the other radiants, but no mention of Jasnah? Her absolutely masterful handling of soulcasting put her right up there with Szeth for badassery in my book.

I gotta give the crown to Dalinar and his... half Ascension? Becoming a Sliver?... whatever he did to pull the realms together and supercharge everyone's Stormlight.

[Velaryon]

Still haven't had a chance to pick this up yet, but I have a question. Does this finish the Stormlight Archive (other than future connections to the rest of the Cosmere), or will there be a fourth book?

[Douglas]

The Stormlight Archive was announced before even The Way of Kings was published as being planned at 10 books long. I haven't heard anything about that changing.

So yes, there will be a fourth book, plus six more to follow.

[Seerow]

The Stormlight Archive was announced before even The Way of Kings was published as being planned at 10 books long. I haven't heard anything about that changing.

So yes, there will be a fourth book, plus six more to follow.

Worth noting that it is planned as two sequences of 5 books with a time jump in between where the main characters switch. So as of oathbringer we're about halfway through the current Arc

[Douglas]

I would like one very specific spoiler from someone who's read the whole book, please: Is the secret of the Recreance - the reason why the ancient Radiants abandoned their oaths - revealed in Oathbringer? Just a yes or no, I'll read it in the book when I get to it if the answer is yes.

[Tvtyrant]

I would like one very specific spoiler from someone who's read the whole book, please: Is the secret of the Recreance - the reason why the ancient Radiants abandoned their oaths - revealed in Oathbringer? Just a yes or no, I'll read it in the book when I get to it if the answer is yes.

Yes.

Unrelated: I enjoyed the book a lot, but I felt that
Kaladin got shafted through nearly the entire book. Family reunion is meh, he doesn't get the girl, he has some sort of breakdown about the next oath, etc.

[Seerow]

Yes.

Unrelated: I enjoyed the book a lot, but I felt that
Kaladin got shafted through nearly the entire book. Family reunion is meh, he doesn't get the girl, he has some sort of breakdown about the next oath, etc.


The big secret that caused the recreance actually seemed like something of a let-down to me. We had long since guessed humans weren't native to Roshar, that being the big secret just feels off. That being said, I feel like the characters focusing on that is a misdirect. The thing that stuck out to me was the revelation that Humans had destroyed their previous planet with Surgebinding. That requires power on a whole other level compared to what we are seeing so far in the series, even Dalinar's Unity. I strongly suspect it was less about Humans being foreign invaders, and more about how/why the previous planet was destroyed. Given that Honor was allegedly raving mad by the time the recreance happened, and when the secret had been discovered in other generations it didn't break the Radiants after he had a chance to talk to them, I feel like there's other factors at play here we're still not privvy to.



As far as Kaladin's overall story arc, I didn't mind. Kaladin was the main star of book 1, and took a prominent leading role in book 2. This isn't a series about a single main protagonist, it's an ensemble, Kaladin having a book where he takes more of a backseat is fine. I do feel like his family reunion could have used a bit more exploration, but besides that I was fine with it. I was actually happy Kaladin didn't level up again. Going on a firm 1 oath per book just makes things a little too predictable imo. The main thing I feel cheated on was the Kaladin vs Amaram showdown. Kaladin was hamstrung throughout the fight by needing to protect Dalinar from random Fused mooks flying in, leaving Amaram able to take advantage, and then Amaram gets surprise headshotted by someone else. Yes, sometimes Kaladin needs someone else to save him... but it didn't feel like a particularly satisfying resolution to the guy who set so much trouble into motion.

[Douglas]

Yes.
Thank you.

Just finished part 3.
I'd been wondering for a while whether saving Kholinar would be the climax of part 3, or of the whole book. The "army through the Oathgate" plan just seemed too tidy and perfect, even with an Unmade or two in the way. I did not call the queen being that thoroughly complicit, though, or Elhokar dying. There have been all those hints of him being a potential Radiant even from book 1, it was a surprise to see that cut short.

In other news, thank you Hoid/Wit, for finally talking some much needed sense at Shallan. Suppressing your memories is not a healthy coping mechanism.

I wondered a bit, when a chapter epigraph revealed that it's the Fourth Ideal that grants Shardplate, whether Kaladin would be getting that at a climactic turnaround moment in the fight to save the city. Still time for that to happen in the counterattack later, though.

I'm really not sure whether Sja-anat is being honest about having switched sides. Her warning in this case was genuine, but that could easily be part of a longer deception plan.

[Seerow]

Thank you.

Just finished part 3.
I'd been wondering for a while whether saving Kholinar would be the climax of part 3, or of the whole book. The "army through the Oathgate" plan just seemed too tidy and perfect, even with an Unmade or two in the way. I did not call the queen being that thoroughly complicit, though, or Elhokar dying. There have been all those hints of him being a potential Radiant even from book 1, it was a surprise to see that cut short.

In other news, thank you Hoid/Wit, for finally talking some much needed sense at Shallan. Suppressing your memories is not a healthy coping mechanism.

I wondered a bit, when a chapter epigraph revealed that it's the Fourth Ideal that grants Shardplate, whether Kaladin would be getting that at a climactic turnaround moment in the fight to save the city. Still time for that to happen in the counterattack later, though.

I'm really not sure whether Sja-anat is being honest about having switched sides. Her warning in this case was genuine, but that could easily be part of a longer deception plan.

Yeah Elhokar's death rocked me more than really anything else in the book besides Eshonai literally being dead in a ditch.

The Epigraph you mention threw me off a bit, because my understanding was Kaladin is at the 3rd ideal as of the end of WoR, and as of that same time Shallan is a step ahead of him. So in theory if the 4th ideal grants Shard Plate, why does Shallan not have it? Or does it vary between orders?

Also yeah Elhokar's wife being bad news we knew. But literally bonding one of the unmade is a level of crazypants I really hadn't anticipated at all.

[Tvtyrant]

The big secret that caused the recreance actually seemed like something of a let-down to me. We had long since guessed humans weren't native to Roshar, that being the big secret just feels off. That being said, I feel like the characters focusing on that is a misdirect. The thing that stuck out to me was the revelation that Humans had destroyed their previous planet with Surgebinding. That requires power on a whole other level compared to what we are seeing so far in the series, even Dalinar's Unity. I strongly suspect it was less about Humans being foreign invaders, and more about how/why the previous planet was destroyed. Given that Honor was allegedly raving mad by the time the recreance happened, and when the secret had been discovered in other generations it didn't break the Radiants after he had a chance to talk to them, I feel like there's other factors at play here we're still not privvy to.



As far as Kaladin's overall story arc, I didn't mind. Kaladin was the main star of book 1, and took a prominent leading role in book 2. This isn't a series about a single main protagonist, it's an ensemble, Kaladin having a book where he takes more of a backseat is fine. I do feel like his family reunion could have used a bit more exploration, but besides that I was fine with it. I was actually happy Kaladin didn't level up again. Going on a firm 1 oath per book just makes things a little too predictable imo. The main thing I feel cheated on was the Kaladin vs Amaram showdown. Kaladin was hamstrung throughout the fight by needing to protect Dalinar from random Fused mooks flying in, leaving Amaram able to take advantage, and then Amaram gets surprise headshotted by someone else. Yes, sometimes Kaladin needs someone else to save him... but it didn't feel like a particularly satisfying resolution to the guy who set so much trouble into motion.



Recreance seemed to me that they realized their oaths are what make them inevitably destroy the world. Somehow they are going to realize the final oath makes them choose a path of destruction or break their bond.

Amaram being a follower of the evil guy seemed like a mistake to me. It took away from the point of his character, to show that ends justify the means is terrible in practice, but if he is actually an apocalypse worshipping dude then the lesson becomes "don't follow Sauron" which is meaningless. Dalinar did that part much better with his addiction to being a khornate.

[Douglas]

Yeah Elhokar's death rocked me more than really anything else in the book besides Eshonai literally being dead in a ditch.

The Epigraph you mention threw me off a bit, because my understanding was Kaladin is at the 3rd ideal as of the end of WoR, and as of that same time Shallan is a step ahead of him. So in theory if the 4th ideal grants Shard Plate, why does Shallan not have it? Or does it vary between orders?

Also yeah Elhokar's wife being bad news we knew. But literally bonding one of the unmade is a level of crazypants I really hadn't anticipated at all.
I thought Shallan was at the 3rd Ideal, though my memory's a bit fuzzy on exactly how I got that impression. Acknowledging that her Shardblade is Pattern rather than a normal one as the 2nd, and then the full memory of the fiasco with her family as the 3rd, or something like that maybe? Granted, this doesn't fit with her having a Shardblade before then, but maybe the traumatic experience (and subsequent repression of memory) made her backslide but without removing the abilities?

[Actana]

The big secret that caused the recreance actually seemed like something of a let-down to me. We had long since guessed humans weren't native to Roshar, that being the big secret just feels off. That being said, I feel like the characters focusing on that is a misdirect. The thing that stuck out to me was the revelation that Humans had destroyed their previous planet with Surgebinding. That requires power on a whole other level compared to what we are seeing so far in the series, even Dalinar's Unity. I strongly suspect it was less about Humans being foreign invaders, and more about how/why the previous planet was destroyed. Given that Honor was allegedly raving mad by the time the recreance happened, and when the secret had been discovered in other generations it didn't break the Radiants after he had a chance to talk to them, I feel like there's other factors at play here we're still not privvy to.



As far as Kaladin's overall story arc, I didn't mind. Kaladin was the main star of book 1, and took a prominent leading role in book 2. This isn't a series about a single main protagonist, it's an ensemble, Kaladin having a book where he takes more of a backseat is fine. I do feel like his family reunion could have used a bit more exploration, but besides that I was fine with it. I was actually happy Kaladin didn't level up again. Going on a firm 1 oath per book just makes things a little too predictable imo. The main thing I feel cheated on was the Kaladin vs Amaram showdown. Kaladin was hamstrung throughout the fight by needing to protect Dalinar from random Fused mooks flying in, leaving Amaram able to take advantage, and then Amaram gets surprise headshotted by someone else. Yes, sometimes Kaladin needs someone else to save him... but it didn't feel like a particularly satisfying resolution to the guy who set so much trouble into motion.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it stated that humans brought Odium to Roshar and only later started venerating Honor? Wouldn't that mean that the powers that destroyed their previous home were those of Odium's "radiants", not the ones we're currently seeing? Which would mean in turn that it's not the Knights Radiant who are even at risk of destroying the world, it's the voidspren.

Or did they have both Odium and Honor radiants among them from the beginning?

[GrayDeath]

While you can enjoy each Cosmere series in isolation, a number of them make more sense in the broader context. Especially the Stormlight Archive. At least one other Cosmere novel is basically a prequel for the Stormlight Archive novels, and the inter-Cosmere interactions are so prevalent that not having the context really does limit how much you'll enjoy it.

As I said: if you don't want to deal with the other Cosmere stuff, you might be better off reading something else. Nothing wrong with that! But it is something you have to keep in mind.

If there was only one other Cosmere novel you could read to help understand the Stormlight Archive, it's be Warbreaker, which was expressly written as a way to introduce some characters that occur in the Stormlight Archive, although only tangentially at the moment. Three characters from Oathbringer originally appeared in Warbreaker.

Also, as for the complaint that the Stormlight characters aren't asking questions of Azure... why would they? The majority of them don't know that other worlds are even a thing.


Thanks for mentioning it, I had Warbreaker here and waiting to be read anyway, now I`m gonna do that while waiting for Book 3 to arrive.

[Douglas]

All Hail Queen Jasnah!

*cough*

Finished the book just now. I'll have more comments to post later.

[Tvtyrant]

All Hail Queen Jasnah!

*cough*

Finished the book just now. I'll have more comments to post later.

I was actually sad she lived. I like Jasnah, but this series is getting to marvel levels of immortality.

Except the king of course.

[Shadow of the Sun]

I was actually sad she lived. I like Jasnah, but this series is getting to marvel levels of immortality.

Except the king of course.

At least every character that's survived stuff like this (except Szeth, at which point there was almost literally Deus Ex Machina...) has a justified reason for doing so, rather than random people being retconned as having survived against earlier characterization.

Actually, one of the things that I appreciated about this book is that Eshonai is dead, if we're not counting some Odium-inspired voidspren shenanigans, rather than her being somehow alive. It also let us look more into Venli's character, which is nice, too.

[Talanic]

Recreance seemed to me that they realized their oaths are what make them inevitably destroy the world. Somehow they are going to realize the final oath makes them choose a path of destruction or break their bond.

Amaram being a follower of the evil guy seemed like a mistake to me. It took away from the point of his character, to show that ends justify the means is terrible in practice, but if he is actually an apocalypse worshipping dude then the lesson becomes "don't follow Sauron" which is meaningless. Dalinar did that part much better with his addiction to being a khornate.



Odium has been talking to Dalinar for less than two months, but explicitly (page 1131) contacted Dalinar before Amaram. He was so self-serving, so willing to justify anything for power that he fell to Odium's offers in a matter of weeks.





I derive significant satisfaction from puzzling things out in advance. If you search these very boards, somewhere waaaay back near when it first came out I made a post about The Way of Kings. In it, I noted that horses, humans and birds (well, chickens) didn't seem to fit with the rest of the world. I didn't know about the Cosmere yet (it was my first brush with Sanderson) and I continued with a guess that Shardplate and Shardblades were technologically based (okay, that bit was way off) and the residents of Roshar were unwilling colonists on an alien planet.

Selectively speaking, nailed it.

[The New Bruceski]

Given Keladin's breakdown, I believe his fourth oath is along the lines of "I will move on from those I fail to protect in order to save the ones I can." It was building right up to that and I was happy to see the subversion of him not having a climactic breakthrough.

Sanderson doesn't write very subtle, but dang he writes satisfingly. The almost hyperbolic character personalities let him shift viewpoints in a busy scene like that end battle without any difficulty or confusion.

Elhokar being courted by the Cryptics has been clear from the first book when his paranoid mutterings included their Shadesmar form watching him. Great evolution into the role confronting his lie that he could be the King his father was, and then that death scene was gut-wrenching.

I'm not sure what to think of the Diagram. That note for bargaining with Odium implies that when he wrote it he KNEW that their interpretation-guided attempt to dethrone Dalinar would fail and that he'd resist Odium's trial despite their assumption otherwise. So is this still, as claimed, a way to salvage what he can from Odium's wrath or is the Diagram a poison pill, flawed in some way to help them actually win against him?

[Talanic]

I'm not sure what to think of the Diagram. That note for bargaining with Odium implies that when he wrote it he KNEW that their interpretation-guided attempt to dethrone Dalinar would fail and that he'd resist Odium's trial despite their assumption otherwise. So is this still, as claimed, a way to salvage what he can from Odium's wrath or is the Diagram a poison pill, flawed in some way to help them actually win against him?




Cultivation is the real genius here. In fact, we have this entire war wrong - it's not the humans versus Odium, or Honor versus Odium, it's Cultivation fighting Odium from the shadows, and, currently, owning the heck out of him.

I think the three deities' view on foresight is a fine representation of their character and domain. Honor didn't look as much to the future because (although he could dream of a grand future or fear for the fate of the world) he was far more concerned with how things are. Odium can see the future, but since he's a god of passion and anger, he's far more likely to give weight to outcomes that he wants to happen and can be blindsided by an outcome he didn't want.

Cultivation, however, is all about creating a situation that will grow into what she wants, and she clearly doesn't want Odium to win.

What did Taravangian ask for? The capacity to save people from the coming troubles. The Nightwatcher made him have great intelligence and great compassion, but each is always the inverse of the other. Taravangian thinks that the periods of compassion are periods of weakness, and so does Odium. They are both wrong. Odium is going to keep on coming to Taravangian while he's in his 'weak' periods, going to bully him and force him to help the world's coming destruction - until some point when Taravangian's compassion is going to allow him to sacrifice himself to really put a spike in Odium's plans. And Odium will never see it coming because he doesn't think compassion can be a strength.

I'm not certain that Transcendent Taravangian planned that out. It's possible, partly because he can't have NOT known that Odium would beat him on a purely intellectual level. TT may have been the greatest genius ever, but he was still bound by humanity, and bound further by having only twenty hours to write the Diagram.

So that's one possibility - that Cultivation turned Taravangian into a weapon against Odium.

Another possibility, though. Taravangian only found the paragraph in the Diagram after Odium projected it out. How do we know the words that Taravangian read were actually his writing, and not something Odium added to the Diagram?

[Doran]

It does seem as though Lift, Dalinar and Taravangian are all three weapons of Cultivation against Odium.
Likewise both Shallan and Kaladin are guided by Wit/Hoid.

I wonder if this is why we don't see Wit helping out Dalinar, Lift or Taravangian, as there's too much chance Cultivation OR Odium will notice him.

When encountering Dalinar 5 years ago, Cultivation mention this is the first time she's met with a mortal for centuries.
Lift met with the Nightwatcher and/or Cultivation 3 years ago.

I wonder if T met her more than 5 years ago?

That could mean that the Nightwatcher gave him the Compassion/Intelligence curse, but then Cultivation found out and made him create the Diagram.

[Douglas]

I have to say, I feel the infiltration of Cosmere stuff - a series I have not read and don't intend to read - really undercut Oathbreaker hard. It obvious that stuff from outside this intricately developed world is infiltrating it and breaks the complex rules setup for everyone in bizarre ways.


In particular, it seems to really hurt the big reveal that humans aren't native to Roshar and effectively stole the land from the parsh/listeners by undercutting the moral quandary, since by that point it's already been revealed that there are other worlds where humans live, which offers a workaround.

Cosmere is not a series, it's a meta-series, and the Stormlight Archive is part of it, so you're technically already reading it. Roshar is one intricately developed world, there are several other intricately developed worlds in other series (some of which haven't been written and published yet), and they all fit together into the same intricately developed universe. The stuff from another world may not operate by the Roshar-specific rules of spren, Shardblades, Surges, and Knights Radiant and such, but those are special cases and applications of more general rules which the other-world stuff does follow. None of which you really need to know to follow the story Oathbreaker is telling.

As for the spoiler comment
are you really suggesting that the population of Roshar evacuate to another world? There would be rather extreme logistical problems with that, and those would be thoroughly dwarfed by the problems involved in convincing everyone to do it. Even if you somehow dealt with those problems, you'd then be dumping an entire world's worth of refugees on another world. It's not even close to a feasible solution.


The big secret that caused the recreance actually seemed like something of a let-down to me. We had long since guessed humans weren't native to Roshar, that being the big secret just feels off. That being said, I feel like the characters focusing on that is a misdirect. The thing that stuck out to me was the revelation that Humans had destroyed their previous planet with Surgebinding. That requires power on a whole other level compared to what we are seeing so far in the series, even Dalinar's Unity. I strongly suspect it was less about Humans being foreign invaders, and more about how/why the previous planet was destroyed. Given that Honor was allegedly raving mad by the time the recreance happened, and when the secret had been discovered in other generations it didn't break the Radiants after he had a chance to talk to them, I feel like there's other factors at play here we're still not privvy to.
That may have been the result of a more open and direct conflict between Shards, possibly even the event where Odium's current bonds were established. It may also have involved the Dawnshards, which have been mentioned by name a few times but very little about them has been revealed. Ancient Shard-created weapons of mass destruction, maybe?

In any case, as I recall the Stormfather does say that part of the reason the Radiants abandoned their oaths was that they were concerned that Surgebinding might somehow destroy Roshar eventually.


Amaram being a follower of the evil guy seemed like a mistake to me. It took away from the point of his character, to show that ends justify the means is terrible in practice, but if he is actually an apocalypse worshipping dude then the lesson becomes "don't follow Sauron" which is meaningless. Dalinar did that part much better with his addiction to being a khornate.
I think he was not originally a follower of Odium, but got converted the way Odium tried to convert Dalinar.

Amaram's goal has been to get the Heralds to return so they can lead humanity to greatness. Odium revealed to him that the Heralds have been there all along, intentionally hiding from everyone, and Amaram felt betrayed by the Heralds because of that. It was likely a painful revelation to him, and he apparently accepted Odium's offer to take his pain so that he wouldn't have to face it. Amaram's failure then serves as a contrast to Dalinar's success in resisting Odium's temptation.

Watching Shallan keep trying to deal with her issues by suppressing and ignoring the memories, and escaping into alternate personalities, was painful. She accomplished a lot of important and impressive things, all the while slowly falling apart psychologically. I've already commented about liking when Wit finally intervened with some good and insightful advice, but I also really liked the (I hope final) resolution of that. Adolin recognizing the real Shallan, and Shallan responding to that, was beautiful. It was also very nice to see her emphatically choose Adolin, recognizing that her feelings for Kaladin weren't nearly as meaningful.

Kaladin actually not reaching the Fourth Ideal in a climactic moment to resolve a conflict was a good subversion and break from the pattern of the first two books. I'm still curious what the Fourth Ideal is, though, and he'll probably reach it next book (and get Shardplate?). Maybe he'll even match Lopen's utterly non-dramatic (despite his planning otherwise) swearing of an Ideal.:smallamused:

I'm disappointed with Nalan and many of the Skybreakers. Their philosophy, or maybe just their execution of it, has... problems. I can see some sense in swearing to some objective code not subject to your own whims, but if you're going to commit to something like that you had better be extremely careful and certain in your choice of what it is. And then resorting to selective enforcement, manipulating the source of your external "objective code", explicitly endorsing the use of loopholes, and likely putting greater emphasis on the exact wording of things than their spirit? Seems like a lot of hypocrisy to me.

Even Szeth's oath, though very convenient and good for the protagonists at least for now, has the potential to turn bad. Szeth chose it because Dalinar was an extraordinary and good man, and the leader of the fight against Odium, but as has been pointed out many times in this book, men change. If Dalinar were to fall, such as if he had given in to Odium's attempt to convert him, Szeth following him down would be very bad and not at all in the spirit of his oath.

Dalinar's new Ideal (his third, I think), and the whole scene where he spoke it, was awesome. The sheer number of things that were simultaneously and separately looking very very bad just before a dramatic recovery was a bit excessive, though. Also, I'm wondering a bit whether Dalinar will eventually be able to un-Splinter Honor.

Regarding the secret of the Recreance, I think the characters paid far too little attention to the point that those ancient humans served Odium, and in fact were named Voidbringers specifically because Odium - "the Void" - came with them to Roshar. Sure, it's a shocking revelation that humans were the original Voidbringers, but the truly important thing about Voidbringers is the god they serve, not what species they are. You can believe that the listeners were in the right in the first Desolation, and at the same time believe that the humans were in the right in most of the following Desolations, quite easily and consistently by recognizing that the important common element is that Odium is the enemy.

About the Diagram, it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out that Super-Taravangian anticipated Odium's reaction to certain things, and his ability to see and interpret the Diagram's contents, and wrote things partly with an eye toward manipulating ordinary Taravangian into unwittingly taking courses of action that would have anti-Odium results without Odium being aware of the plan. I'm also intrigued by the implication that Renarin is a rogue factor Odium's future sight can't account for, who might thus become a key part of Odium's eventual defeat. Extra-interesting that Taravangian didn't mention this to Odium even while agreeing to serve him, and that the wording used was that The Diagram (the organization) would serve Odium. I could see Taravangian starting up a separate secret organization while distancing himself from the existing one, and Kharbranth being officially spared Odium's wrath might come in useful.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the development that two of the Heralds are now in Dalinar's custody. Jasnah identified them when they fainted at the Oathgate. Even better, both of these two are (at least sometimes) mentally functional and may be able (and willing?) to provide their knowledge and expertise, unlike Jezrien before he died. Talenelat in particular I expect will be not merely willing, but eager, at least when he's not zoned out with his lengthy "prepare for the Desolation" mantra.

[Talanic]

The more I think about Amaram, the less surprised I am that he fell to Odium. In the past two months, not only has his entire life's work turned out to be worthless, he's been publicly exposed as a fraud, lost one of his best friends, and his liege lord was murdered - apparently (to him) BY said best friend (or at his orders). Even the fact that he's now Highprince Sadeas means nothing - Alethkar has been conquered, and he's Highprince-In-Exile...unless, perhaps, if he turns to the other side.

He's been trying to return the church to power by returning the Heralds, but the only one he meets is a broken madman. When Odium tells him the rest are there, active, and uncaring about the needs of humanity - well, his entire life was a lie! More than that, he actively worked to cause an apocalypse - one he believed that only the Heralds could stop, and now he knows the Heralds can't and/or won't stop it! Given his earlier actions, his willingness to sacrifice others for his own power, the fact that he would then swap to what he perceived as the winning side is no surprise at all.



If Dalinar falls, would he still have his will - which is explicitly what Szeth swore to serve? Or would it be Odium's will in his place, and he could no longer give orders to Szeth? I believe this is moot. If Dalinar has not fallen at this point, he won't.





I don't think that anyone realized that the original Voidbringers followed Odium. At the point that the translation was revealed, we hadn't really seen Odium's emotion-sucking side yet. They'll probably address it at some point.

[Mechalich]

As for the spoiler comment
are you really suggesting that the population of Roshar evacuate to another world? There would be rather extreme logistical problems with that, and those would be thoroughly dwarfed by the problems involved in convincing everyone to do it. Even if you somehow dealt with those problems, you'd then be dumping an entire world's worth of refugees on another world. It's not even close to a feasible solution.



No, I'm saying it lessens the stakes. First, because so long as there are other world with humans on them even if Odium ultimately wins on Roshar and kills all the humans there humanity doesn't go extinct. The destruction of a population is inherently less threatening than the extinction of a species. Period. Secondly, no one cares about the faceless masses - that's not how humans respond to storytelling. Witness the situation with the Parsh. They are almost all going to die - in fact Jasnah notes explicitly in the text that at the current juncture - with no means to stop the Fused - the only way humanity can win against Odium is to xenocide them - but we the reader are not really intended to care. In fact, by using as the only Parsh viewpoint character the individual in this series with the most blood on her hands of all Sanderson is deliberately making them even less sympathetic.

By revealing the presence of other worlds then, Sanderson establishes that Roshar can fall entirely and yet the story can continue. Any major characters can escape elsewhere. Even if they don't even if humanity and its allied spren forces ultimately win on Roshar, Stormlight Archive has been revealed as the battle, not the war. In all honesty, that's kind of ridiculous, given the shear length of the series. This series is going to be something like 3 million words if it actually gets finished. That's not enough?

[Doran]

Mechalich, do you really think we're being setup for Parsh genocide/xenocide winning the day?
Against the God of Hate?

Sounds like Odium's ultimate end goal - get one side to genocide the other and use that to break free of the Greater Roshar system.

Despite the fact said God is perfectly happy using both Parshmen and humans as tools, and has started possessing the latter via the Thrill? It's only a step from there to Void Knight Radiant.

I disagree with humanity existing on other planets robs the story of tension and drama - even if you think of faceless masses, it doesn't then matter if humans still exist on other planets or not.

[Personification]

Hi people, I love that this is a thing, I loved the book, and to those who didn't:

DEEEESTROOOY!!!! (just kidding, opinions and tastes are personal):smallbiggrin:
Anyway, have you guys also been to the 17th Shard, just wondering, they have a lot of these discussions there with interesting feedback stuff on them from different people, so yeah. Also, I love the Kaladin Avatar! We need more Cosmere themed avatars!

[JeenLeen]

I'm about halfway through the book, but a couple questions.

Is the supposed Radiant that Targavarian (sp) brings with him mentioned in the first or second book? If so, please summarize. Sorry that I don't remember how to spell her name.

Would someone summarize what the Warbreaker character(s) did in the first/second book?
beyond the living sword's cool appearance near the end of the second book. Mainly referring to Zahel/Vasher

[Doran]

First question

Mr T’s dustbringer Malata was not mentioned previously even in Ts POV presumably to keep her a secret.


Second question

Zahel appears as an old ardent in Bk2, becomes Renarin and Kaladin’s sword master, uses colour expressions, refers to a former voice in his head.

Late bk2 Kaladin looks for advice from Wit/Hoid about protecting the king and finds Zahel. He advises K to make the choice that lets him sleep at night- that’s what he wishes he’d done.

Vasher and Nightblood were also in Way of Kings 2003 draft version, so warbreaker is effectively a prequel for these two characters

[Lord Raziere]

ooooh boy, this was a long punishing read. Sanderosn is really pushing me to my bookish limits with these.

so.....just to summarize and sort this all out in my head:

humans invaded Roshar long ago, after their old world was destroyed. brought Odium with them.

humans turned to Honor, but Radiants learned the truth, abandoned humanity, Honor died but Odium somehow got imprisoned here.

now Odium wants to be free, which is bad, but is all emotions ever so you can't really kill him because he is guy that allows you feel anything.

Jasnah is now Queen.

Dalinar is dealing with the fact that we went Genocide Route in the past without drugs supernatural or otherwise better, and is now writing a book about it.

Kaladin got hit with "everyone is not evil down inside" bat and became useless for a moment.

Shallan has married Adolin and is now the next Queen in line.

Szeth is now on their side.

Taravangian is a fool who thought he could outsmart gods and failed, as expected.

Moash is just a failure in general.

Venli said the Words. This could be good or bad, depending.

Teft and Lopen are now Windrunners.

Amaram is dead, and everyone rejoiced.

Adolin told Shallan and Dalinar that he killed Sadeas. Neither of them cared.

Wit is acting mysterious as usual.

Cultivation is up to something but who knows what.

Despite all that Odium has done, he lost. feel like this book was a very Pyrrhic victory for the protagonists though: the world is basically wrecked by now. and its only the third book.

I feel like this book had a lot of meta jokes for Sanderson though. like you can see them sprinkled throughout the book, and not just in the Hoidwit parts.

[Seerow]

humans invaded Roshar long ago, after their old world was destroyed. brought Odium with them.

humans turned to Honor, but Radiants learned the truth, abandoned humanity, Honor died but Odium somehow got imprisoned here.

now Odium wants to be free, which is bad, but is all emotions ever so you can't really kill him because he is guy that allows you feel anything.


My understanding is that Odium is actually still trapped on the Humans original world, the place where the Heralds go back to between desolations.

Odium can be killed, in the same way that Honor was killed. It doesn't matter whether he is Odium, or if he is Passion, or something else... the Shards of Adonalsium work fundamentally the same, so if Odium is outright killed, the power could be taken up by another individual (as has been done with other shards in other Sanderson series), or the power could be splintered (As Odium did to Honor).


Moash is just a failure in general.

I actually rather like Moash's arc, as kind of a dark mirror of what Kaladin could have become had his worst impulses taken over at various points in the story. But yes lots of strong feelings for Moash. There's actually a whole subreddit /r/****moash.


Venli said the Words. This could be good or bad, depending.

Venli as our first Listener Radiant is a huge deal and I am really hoping it is hers/Eshonai's book next... but I think that is actually Book 5, with Szeth coming up next.


Teft and Lopen are now Windrunners.

Also strongly implied that the two Kaladin met back up with who saved Gavilar's baby are full wind runners as well. They both said the first oath when greeting Kaladin, and somehow managed to get that far away despite Kaladin being nowhere near.


Cultivation is up to something but who knows what.

She's pretty obviously playing games to undermine Odium. Honor said that Cultivation was better at seeing the future than him. She seems to be playing the long game of manipulating certain pieces just the right way to screw with Odium and save herself. The manipulation of Dalinar to deny Odium his preferred Champion was brilliant.


Despite all that Odium has done, he lost. feel like this book was a very Pyrrhic victory for the protagonists though: the world is basically wrecked by now. and its only the third book.

Odium lost a battle, but the war overall he's still in a strong position. The Parsh control Kholinar still, managed to turn a significant chunk of Alethi armies, and still have much of the rest of the world divided and bickering. Oh and he has Tarvangian in his pocket as well. Yeah, things are going to get worse before they get better.

[Lord Raziere]

Odium can be killed, in the same way that Honor was killed. It doesn't matter whether he is Odium, or if he is Passion, or something else... the Shards of Adonalsium work fundamentally the same, so if Odium is outright killed, the power could be taken up by another individual (as has been done with other shards in other Sanderson series), or the power could be splintered (As Odium did to Honor).

I actually rather like Moash's arc, as kind of a dark mirror of what Kaladin could have become had his worst impulses taken over at various points in the story. But yes lots of strong feelings for Moash. There's actually a whole subreddit /r/****moash.

She's pretty obviously playing games to undermine Odium. Honor said that Cultivation was better at seeing the future than him. She seems to be playing the long game of manipulating certain pieces just the right way to screw with Odium and save herself. The manipulation of Dalinar to deny Odium his preferred Champion was brilliant.

Odium lost a battle, but the war overall he's still in a strong position. The Parsh control Kholinar still, managed to turn a significant chunk of Alethi armies, and still have much of the rest of the world divided and bickering. Oh and he has Tarvangian in his pocket as well. Yeah, things are going to get worse before they get better.


Hopefully not everyone who gets the Odium Shard becomes as corrupted as him.

Hm. I see. I guess Moash will be the archenemy to foil Kaladin at some point.

Yeah, Cultivation set it up so that his curse actually prepared Dalinar for this, while his boon gave him a break. Essentially, she picked just the right amount of time for him to recover enough to face it with a different perspective then gradually start remembering.

thing is though, if Cultivation has control over that, how much control does she have over Taravangian's intelligence? how much did she plan for Taravangian to figure out? how much did she plan for Odium to figure out from Taravangian? What does she gain from Kharbranth being preserved? I mean....Taravangian's random intelligence is Cultivation's doing after all, and he did get that Transcendent day awfully early. what if its not really random- just Cultivation adjusting him up and down as she needs? meaning Taravangian is potentially a pawn of both Odium and Cultivation. To put in Avatar The Last Airbender terms:
Long feng/Taravangian: "you have bested me at my own game."
Azula/Cultivation/Odium: "Don't flatter yourself, you were never even a player."

Yeah, what the Parsh choose to do going forward is going to impact a lot of this. I do not see them gaining victories without at least some Parshendi choosing to fight against Odium.

thing is, I don't think Cultivation is guaranteed to be good. She is on the protagonists side for now, but she could easily be the one outgambitting Odium for her own goals, and Cultivation could be pulling all the strings for a plan no one agrees with. who knows what she is going to do? I mean we don't know what Lift's payoff is going to be, or how else she is going to influence events. she is the only Shard they have to fight on their side, and she can't do it openly knowing how destructive Odium is.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Hopefully not everyone who gets the Odium Shard becomes as corrupted as him.

Hm. I see. I guess Moash will be the archenemy to foil Kaladin at some point.

Yeah, Cultivation set it up so that his curse actually prepared Dalinar for this, while his boon gave him a break. Essentially, she picked just the right amount of time for him to recover enough to face it with a different perspective then gradually start remembering.

thing is though, if Cultivation has control over that, how much control does she have over Taravangian's intelligence? how much did she plan for Taravangian to figure out? how much did she plan for Odium to figure out from Taravangian? What does she gain from Kharbranth being preserved? I mean....Taravangian's random intelligence is Cultivation's doing after all, and he did get that Transcendent day awfully early. what if its not really random- just Cultivation adjusting him up and down as she needs? meaning Taravangian is potentially a pawn of both Odium and Cultivation. To put in Avatar The Last Airbender terms:
Long feng/Taravangian: "you have bested me at my own game."
Azula/Cultivation/Odium: "Don't flatter yourself, you were never even a player."

Yeah, what the Parsh choose to do going forward is going to impact a lot of this. I do not see them gaining victories without at least some Parshendi choosing to fight against Odium.

thing is, I don't think Cultivation is guaranteed to be good. She is on the protagonists side for now, but she could easily be the one outgambitting Odium for her own goals, and Cultivation could be pulling all the strings for a plan no one agrees with. who knows what she is going to do? I mean we don't know what Lift's payoff is going to be, or how else she is going to influence events. she is the only Shard they have to fight on their side, and she can't do it openly knowing how destructive Odium is.


It's dangerous to assume that any Shard is specifically on the side of the protagonists. Their desires and goals may align, but they are not really "on anyone's side" other than their own; being aligned with a cosmic principle tends to sway your own personal opinions and viewpoints, changing you over time. And given how long Cultivation's been aligned to that principle, it's definitely coloured her opinions and views. She might be preferable for the protagonists, but she's not really "on their side" in the same way that the sun isn't on anyone's side, even if it provides us all the energy we need for life.

[Pronounceable]

^^^ Actually Moash rocks and has rocketed up to become 2nd best notmain character after the Lopen this time around.
Y'all know Cultivation is the Reverse Ruin, right? It's right there in her name.

[Lord Raziere]

^^^ Actually Moash rocks and has rocketed up to become 2nd best notmain character after the Lopen this time around.
Y'all know Cultivation is the Reverse Ruin, right? It's right there in her name.


I dunno. Sanderson is big on everyone having their own agendas, and the Stormlight series has particularly gone out of its way to be a complex grey world of no clear or easy answers in regards to its problems. if Cultivation just triumphed over Odium then fixed everything through her tough love schtick, I don't think it'd be satisfying.

Cultivation may be about growing things, but to what ends, we don't know. she seems like a mother nature type of deal, and nature is an ugly, harsh often cruel thing. a world ruled by Cultivation might be a fecund, abundant one, but not necessarily a safe one. anything but safe really. best you could hope for would be a competitive garden in my mind, all set up to constantly grow more without you having any real choice in what way you grow. remember: she can see the future. more than Odium. don't trust anyone who can see the future.

Especially not the most powerful Seer of them all.

[Adderbane]

Venli as our first Listener Radiant is a huge deal and I am really hoping it is hers/Eshonai's book next... but I think that is actually Book 5, with Szeth coming up next.


I'm thinking that Eshonai is dead for good and everything Sanderson said about her book is misdirection to hide Venli's arc in Oathbringer.

[Seerow]

I'm thinking that Eshonai is dead for good and everything Sanderson said about her book is misdirection to hide Venli's arc in Oathbringer.


I'm sure she's gone as well, but Sanderson has said a character doesn't need to be alive to be a Flashback focus character. Because of that I suspect Venli's book will still have Eshonai as the Flashback PoV

[DSCrankshaw]

So a couple of thoughts.


How many people think that the story, "The Girl Who Climbed the Wall," is an allegory for humans leaving Shinovar? The wall, meant to keep the humans from leaving, represents the mountains that protect Shinovar from the Highstorms, but also protects the Parshmen from the humans. From the Parshmen point of view, the humans are the monsters, as Shallan's version of the story teaches.

But Wit recontextualized the story with the addition of darkness and light, which most likely represent Odium and Honor. This is not a story about humans destroying the Parshmen, but about humans turning to Honor.

The exact details about what happened aren't clear yet. I imagine there was conflict between the followers of Honor and the followers of Odium. There are still humans who follow the Passions, which is what Odium is--the Shard of Passion. It says more about him than his Shard that his most powerful passion is Hatred. But I suspect this conflict is what drove one group out of Shinovar and thus into conflict with the Parshmen. At least one group of Parshmen was destroyed in this conflict, and made a deal with Odium to be able to return and continue the war--and thus, the Desolations.

The most pro-human interpretation is that the Odium-followers were driven out of Shinovar, where they destroyed a large number of Parshmen, who then made a deal with Odium and destroyed not just the Odium followers, but tried to destroy the Honor-followers as well, which led to the cycle of Desolations, the Heralds, the Oathpact, etc. When Honor was around to explain this, he kept the Recreance from happening. As he became mad, the Radiants lost this perspective, and it destroyed their oaths.

I suspect that it's not as straightforward as that, though. It fits the story better if the Honor-followers were driven out, and then their conflicts with the Parshmen are more tragic and avoidable.

As for the spren, it seems inevitable that they would change and betray the Parshmen. Spren reflect how the world is perceived, and bringing a large group that views the world differently to Roshar naturally changed the spren, who then were more closely bonded with the humans than the Parshmen.



I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone talk about Maya and Adolin yet. This is a ripe area for speculation. It's pretty clear that Maya is a cultivationspren, the same type as Lift's spren Wyndle (who is described as being made of vines and crystals, whereas the cultivationspren are described as having vines for their faces and crystals for their hands when we see them in Celebrant).

This makes sense, as the Second and Third Ideals for the Edgedancers are to "remember those who have been forgotten" and to "listen to those who have been ignored", both of which apply directly to the dead spren. In fact, we see Adolin doing both at the end, when he both remembers and listens to Maya.

The question, then, is whether Adolin is broken enough to form the bond. Some say not yet (https://www.tor.com/2017/12/26/after-oathbringer-speculations-theories-and-expectations-for-brandon-sandersons-next-stormlight-archive-book/), others say that even if he isn't broken, Maya is. There's certainly room to break Adolin more. The fallout from Sadeas's death hasn't really played out yet, nor have we seen the consequences of Adolin learning the truth of how his mother died. Adolin clearly admires and loves his father, and has always modeled himself after him. If Adolin can't forgive his father for killing his mother, and Dalinar can't forgive Adolin for murdering Sadeas, that will drive a wedge between them and possibly break Adolin.

(There's also speculation that Adolin will give up Maya, or that he will turn to the dark side. I think the first is unlikely, and while I hope the second doesn't happen, it doesn't seem impossible, if a wide enough rift opens between him and his father.)

And then there's the question of what it would take to wake up the other Shardblades. There are at least three that don't have a home yet--Renarin's, Oathbringer, and Amaram's blade, which seems to still be in the hands of Rock--who doesn't need one if he bonds an honorspren. But if anyone else can wake up a Shardblade, I'd expect it to be Rock. And if Rock and Adolin can discover what it takes to wake up a Shardblade, they may be able to place the other two blades with people who can wake them up: perhaps squires of the correct orders, though that seems too simple. I don't think it's just a matter of following the Ideals of the dead spren, but practicing the Ideals toward the dead spren. Which is why the Edgedancer ideals fit so well.

[JeenLeen]

My questions after finishing the book (and minor Mistborn spoiler)

While we know Surgebinders destroyed their old world and their coming to Roshar caused Odium to follow, I feel like we might be slightly mislead. For some reason, the idea that they did not originally serve Odium BUT their fleeing one world for another bought Odium with them.

Also, is Odium generally considered to be that red force that Sazed (?) is protecting the mistborn world from, as shown in that one vision he gives to the protagonist near the end of the 'industrial revolution' books?

Lastly, it seems like aluminum might have more universal applications. The room that guarded the soulcaster from the voidspren in Kholinar was warded by a light-weight, silverly metal. And Nightblood's sheath was a silverly metal. I'm wondering if both are aluminum or some alloy of it. (That the sheath can block Nightblood might be a quality of Nightblood, not specific strength of the stealth itself.)
Do we know anything about his sheath from Warbreaker?


All in all, I enjoyed the book a lot.
On Wit/Hoid in the epilogue

I liked confirmation that he can use Breath (or something equivalent) to animate cloth.
And the idea of him gaining Soulcasting and Lightweaving as a Surgebinder is awesome.

Is he supposed to be Yolish and thus maybe have the Lightweaving from that world? I haven't read the short story(ies) that touch on the Yolish planet. (I'm hoping to read that collection of stories Sanderson put out sometime in the next few months.)


EDIT--forgot. A question about the Words/Vows and what they unlock. Is it

No Vow (as squire) -- can possibly start absorbing (and healing via) Stormlight and do basic Surges when their Knight is nearby.
1st Vow -- can absorb Stormlight and heal. Use Surges?
2nd Vow -- can use Surges.
3rd Vow -- can manifest a Shardblade.
4th Vow -- can manifest Shardplate
5th Vow -- ???

And when do you actually bond a spren? It seems unclear to me whether it's the 2nd or 3rd. Especially since, for Kaladin, the 2nd seemed to definitely have him bonded but it seems it might work differently for apprentices, as shown by Bridge Four and the Skybreakers.
Does it seem that using just Lashes until the 3rd Vow was a Skybreaker rule, not an overall rule?

Also, do we know what Windrunners' two Surges are? Are they used together to do the different type of Lashings, or should we be anticipating Kaladin learning another Surge?
That Sazed says Kaladin does more advanced Lashings makes me think Windrunner Lashings are two of the Surges combined.

[Doran]

My questions after finishing the book (and minor Mistborn spoiler)

While we know Surgebinders destroyed their old world and their coming to Roshar caused Odium to follow, I feel like we might be slightly mislead. For some reason, the idea that they did not originally serve Odium BUT their fleeing one world for another bought Odium with them.

Also, is Odium generally considered to be that red force that Sazed (?) is protecting the mistborn world from, as shown in that one vision he gives to the protagonist near the end of the 'industrial revolution' books?

Lastly, it seems like aluminum might have more universal applications. The room that guarded the soulcaster from the voidspren in Kholinar was warded by a light-weight, silverly metal. And Nightblood's sheath was a silverly metal. I'm wondering if both are aluminum or some alloy of it. (That the sheath can block Nightblood might be a quality of Nightblood, not specific strength of the stealth itself.)
Do we know anything about his sheath from Warbreaker?




Red means one shard is corrupting another shard's magic.
Odium's usual color is Gold.
The Red force could potentially be any other shard, or possibly one shard using another's magic as a tool - say if Odium or Autonomy corrupted a splinter of Ambition.

From WoB we know Nightblood's sheath is aluminium.




All in all, I enjoyed the book a lot.
On Wit/Hoid in the epilogue

I liked confirmation that he can use Breath (or something equivalent) to animate cloth.
And the idea of him gaining Soulcasting and Lightweaving as a Surgebinder is awesome.

Is he supposed to be Yolish and thus maybe have the Lightweaving from that world? I haven't read the short story(ies) that touch on the Yolish planet. (I'm hoping to read that collection of stories Sanderson put out sometime in the next few months.)




Yolen was featured in Liar of Partinel, Hoid's old backstory, and Dragonsteel which is also where Bridge 4 and the Shattered Plains are from.

No stories from Yolen are currently canon, but we know there is a dragon called Frost there (he replies to Hoid's letter in Words of Radiance). It was the location of the Shattering of Adonalasium, and most of humanity (apart from Scadrians which were created directly from their Shards) are descended from there.




EDIT--forgot. A question about the Words/Vows and what they unlock. Is it

No Vow (as squire) -- can possibly start absorbing (and healing via) Stormlight and do basic Surges when their Knight is nearby.
1st Vow -- can absorb Stormlight and heal. Use Surges?
2nd Vow -- can use Surges.
3rd Vow -- can manifest a Shardblade.
4th Vow -- can manifest Shardplate
5th Vow -- ???

And when do you actually bond a spren? It seems unclear to me whether it's the 2nd or 3rd. Especially since, for Kaladin, the 2nd seemed to definitely have him bonded but it seems it might work differently for apprentices, as shown by Bridge Four and the Skybreakers.
Does it seem that using just Lashes until the 3rd Vow was a Skybreaker rule, not an overall rule?

Also, do we know what Windrunners' two Surges are? Are they used together to do the different type of Lashings, or should we be anticipating Kaladin learning another Surge?
That Sazed says Kaladin does more advanced Lashings makes me think Windrunner Lashings are two of the Surges combined.



Vow unlocking seems to be different for different orders - e.g. Bondsmiths get no Blade at all.

Jasnah probably has plate however, judging from the final battle.

Windrunner surges are Gravitation and Adhesion: The Surge of Pressure and Vacuum - Full Lashing is an example of the latter, and Kaladin also uses it to split the winds of a highstorm.

Also Sazed? Do you mean Szeth?
A knight radiant is more efficient at stormlight use then someone holding a honorblade.
I also don't think people holding an honorblade get access to resonance combination powers - like the Windrunner's ability to have many squires.

[Douglas]

Vow unlocking seems to be different for different orders - e.g. Bondsmiths get no Blade at all.
I think that one isn't that Bondsmiths can't manifest a Blade, but that the Stormfather refuses to be so subservient to a human as to become a physical tool for him - the idea is too insulting and offensive to him for him to cooperate in that way, but if he ever changes his mind he does have the ability to be a Shardblade for Dalinar.

[Doran]

Sorry, I meant it isn't magically impossible for it to occur, but that the three World/Godspren refuse to do it, as you stated.

On the other hand... (http://tatter-demallion.tumblr.com/post/100307590545/i-love-that-dalinar-basically-ordered-the)

I wonder if Syl is made up of pure "Tanavastium", and Pattern of pure "Cultivatium" in blade form with other orders being a mix of the two metals.

[DSCrankshaw]

EDIT--forgot. A question about the Words/Vows and what they unlock. Is it

No Vow (as squire) -- can possibly start absorbing (and healing via) Stormlight and do basic Surges when their Knight is nearby.
1st Vow -- can absorb Stormlight and heal. Use Surges?
2nd Vow -- can use Surges.
3rd Vow -- can manifest a Shardblade.
4th Vow -- can manifest Shardplate
5th Vow -- ???

And when do you actually bond a spren? It seems unclear to me whether it's the 2nd or 3rd. Especially since, for Kaladin, the 2nd seemed to definitely have him bonded but it seems it might work differently for apprentices, as shown by Bridge Four and the Skybreakers.
Does it seem that using just Lashes until the 3rd Vow was a Skybreaker rule, not an overall rule?

Also, do we know what Windrunners' two Surges are? Are they used together to do the different type of Lashings, or should we be anticipating Kaladin learning another Surge?
That Sazed says Kaladin does more advanced Lashings makes me think Windrunner Lashings are two of the Surges combined.


Vow unlocking seems to be different for different orders - e.g. Bondsmiths get no Blade at all.

Jasnah probably has plate however, judging from the final battle.

Windrunner surges are Gravitation and Adhesion: The Surge of Pressure and Vacuum - Full Lashing is an example of the latter, and Kaladin also uses it to split the winds of a highstorm.

Also Sazed? Do you mean Szeth?
A knight radiant is more efficient at stormlight use then someone holding a honorblade.
I also don't think people holding an honorblade get access to resonance combination powers - like the Windrunner's ability to have many squires.


Vow unlocking

EDIT: I expanded on this a little.

It definitely seems to vary depending on the order. Edgedancers and Windrunners receive their blades on their third vow, while Shallan has her blade after only the first ideal, before having to tell any truths. And Dalinar was able to force the Stormfather to manifest after only the second ideal.

Nale seems to imply that Skybreakers only get access to their second surge with their third ideal, but it's not always divided like that. Lift could cause plants to grow after only the first, but needed the second ideal to heal, and they're both done with the surge of progression. It's implied that flight comes with the second ideal for Windrunners, though gravitation for other purposes (such as to draw away arrows) can come before.

As for spren, if someone attracts the attention of a spren, they can heal and surgebind before saying the first ideal, as Kaladin did in the first book. Squires can piggyback on their Knight's spren, but they seem to need a spren of their own before saying the third ideal, at least for the Skybreakers. But it's also possible to attract a spren earlier, and may be necessary for the second ideal among Windrunners (that seemed to be the case for Lopen, and possibly Teft, though we didn't see where he said the second ideal). Clearly, you need a spren before you can summon a Shardblade.


Speaking of spren and surgebinding:

Did anyone get the impression that Adolin was surgebinding at the end of Oathbringer? The way he fought the thunderclast seemed very much in keeping with how I expect Edgedancers to operate: quick hit and run attacks, always keeping just ahead of the enemy. His semi-recovery after falling into the building seemed suspiciously quick.

There's also one reference to him sliding across the rubble, and if Abrasion works both ways, increasing friction as well as decreasing it, then it may have other applications, such as clinging to a thunderclast's finger or dangling from a cliff face.

If Adolin was surgebinding, it was the same sort of unconscious surgebinding we saw from Kaladin early in the first book. Some suspiciously lucky breaks, but nothing clearly supernatural. So there's no proof it was happening, but I have my suspicions.

[Tvtyrant]

Vow unlocking

It definitely seems to vary depending on the order. Edgedancers and Windrunners receive their blades on their third vow, while Shallan has her blade after only the first ideal, before having to tell any truths. And Dalinar was able to force the Stormfather to manifest after only the second ideal.

Nale seems to imply that Skybreakers only get access to their second surge with their third ideal, but it's not always divided like that. Lift could cause plants to grow after only the first, but needed the second ideal to heal, and they're both done with the surge of progression. It's implied that flight comes with the second ideal for Windrunners, though gravitation for other purposes can come before.

As for spren, if someone attracts the attention of a spren, they can heal and surgebind before saying the first ideal, as Kaladin did in the first book. Squires can piggyback on their Knight's spren, but they seem to need a spren of their own before saying the third ideal, at least for the Skybreakers. But it's also possible to attract a spren earlier, and may be necessary for the second ideal among Windrunners.


Speaking of spren and surgebinding:

Did anyone get the impression that Adolin was surgebinding at the end of Oathbringer? The way he fought the thunderclast seemed very much in keeping with how I expect Edgedancers to operate: quick hit and run attacks, always keeping just ahead of the enemy. His semi-recovery after falling into the building seemed suspiciously quick.

There's also one reference to him sliding across the rubble, and if Abrasion works both ways, increasing friction as well as decreasing it, then it may have other applications, such as clinging to a thunderclast's finger or dangling from a cliff face.

If Adolin was surgebinding, it was the same sort of unconscious surgebinding we saw from Kaladin early in the first book. Some suspiciously lucky breaks, but nothing clearly supernatural. So there's no proof it was happening, but I have my suspicions.


I hope Adolin isn't. I am fairly irritated by how widespread it is now. Feels like Star Wars EU where everyone has to be a Jedi to be special. Adolin is cool because he doesn't have super powers, and gets the girl by being a nice, cool person instead of the Broodster.

Making him a radiant takes away from why he is so likable.

[DSCrankshaw]

I hope Adolin isn't. I am fairly irritated by how widespread it is now. Feels like Star Wars EU where everyone has to be a Jedi to be special. Adolin is cool because he doesn't have super powers, and gets the girl by being a nice, cool person instead of the Broodster.

Making him a radiant takes away from why he is so likable.

Re Adolin.

I can't say I agree.

First, reviving Shardblades has been foreshadowed for a while now, and Adolin's the only Shardbearer with a serious chance of doing it (well, maybe Rock, if he still has Amaram's Shardblade). I've been expecting this since the second book.

Second, they need Radiants. Lots of Radiants. There were hundreds of them in previous Desolations. There are, what, maybe a dozen now? They were outnumbered at least ten-to-one during the battle of Thaylen City. How many Fused did they actually manage to kill? Jasnah got a couple, and Adolin killed one. I don't recall any of the others actually killing a Fused. Not that it makes any difference, as long as the Fused can simply find more bodies, but if all those dead singers found a body they'd outnumber the Radiants at least a hundred to one.

Not to mention that the only organized order of Radiants, the Skybreakers, are working for the other side. And it looks like a lot of the Dustbringers will join that side as well. And at least one Reacher, though there's hope that Venli will eventually join Dalinar's team.

Frankly, there are too few spren willing to bond humans, because of the Recreance. The only way they'll be able to raise enough Radiants to stand a fighting chance is to start reviving the dead spren. If they can do that, that will not only create as many Radiants as they have Shardblades, it may also convince the more reluctant spren to give the humans a second chance.

[Tvtyrant]

Re Adolin.

I can't say I agree.

First, reviving Shardblades has been foreshadowed for a while now, and Adolin's the only Shardbearer with a serious chance of doing it (well, maybe Rock, if he still has Amaram's Shardblade). I've been expecting this since the second book.

Second, they need Radiants. Lots of Radiants. There were hundreds of them in previous Desolations. There are, what, maybe a dozen now? They were outnumbered at least ten-to-one during the battle of Thaylen City. How many Fused did they actually manage to kill? Jasnah got a couple, and Adolin killed one. I don't recall any of the others actually killing a Fused. Not that it makes any difference, as long as the Fused can simply find more bodies, but if all those dead singers found a body they'd outnumber the Radiants at least a hundred to one.

Not to mention that the only organized order of Radiants, the Skybreakers, are working for the other side. And it looks like a lot of the Dustbringers will join that side as well. And at least one Reacher, though there's hope that Venli will eventually join Dalinar's team.

Frankly, there are too few spren willing to bond humans, because of the Recreance. The only way they'll be able to raise enough Radiants to stand a fighting chance is to start reviving the dead spren. If they can do that, that will not only create as many Radiants as they have Shardblades, it may also convince the more reluctant spren to give the humans a second chance.


That assumes that this series is going to involve a final battle. I really hope not, I have read both WoT and Mistborn series and don't need another installment of Sanderson's End Times.

The story so far has given me hope it won't be another huge fantasy war book. Characters get their powerups based on personal development, and in the books so far battles have always gone badly and personal decision making has gone well. Especially with Dalinar's choice instead of a super power smackdown.

[Doran]

So I've got a rambly ending theory of the Stormlight Archive Ending, but it involves spoilers not only potentially all Brandon's Cosmere Works, but any Words Of Brandon he's stated on here (wob.coppermind.net/).


So this theory is pretty out there, so I'm not going to reference all words of Brandon directly right now - I'll do so if people look into it though. This is also based on various speculation on Vessel's I've read on the 17th Shard.

So we know investiture=energy=mass in the Cosmere, and at the Shattering of Adonalasium all investiture was aligned to one of the 16 shards.

We also know that though the power of Adonalasium is infinite (or at least encompassing the entire universe), the Shards are not all powerful, as they have finite minds/souls (which is why Sazed can't sense every use of Ruin/Preservation aligned investiture in the universe).

The Vessel is like a hosepipe attached to an ocean in the Spritual Realm - they can stretch themselves through more power but there are still limits. For example in Mistborn Secret History (MSH) Kelsier exploited the fact Ruin is not omnipresent, and that his attention was elsewhere when speaking to Spook.

Also from MSH we know that Vessels are bound to their power by Connection - which can be hacked and artificially created. Without this connection to a Vessel, the Power can be then splintered, and manipulated by another shard. For a full connection/power, the Vessel needs to have a presence to the Physical realm, unlike a Cognitive shadow (not sure if Kelsier with a body or a Herald could wield the full power of a Shard).

A Vessel is bound and manipulated by their Intent, which can corrupt them over time, and potentially even puppet them. However a Vessel holder also interprets their intent to the extent of synoyms. Ati thought Ruin was wholly evil and destructive, and so was he in the end. Sazed however more easily recognises the role of Ruin in recycling and creation, and part of the natural order. Dalinar, Sadeas or Amaram holding Honor would each interpret Honor differently (e.g. Amaram might interpret Honor as Glory - more about Good PR)

An example of this was on Sel (Elantris planet), where AonDor is the remnants of Devotion (Aona) and Dominion (Skai) Powers. Odium ripped the powers from the Spiritual realm, and jammed them together in the Cognitive realm preventing people from picking them up. Seons and Skaze are splinters cast off from this process.

We also know from Oathbringer that Odium stopped trying to destroy the Stormfather because it meant he was open to a strike from Cultivation which could destroy him in turn.

This doesn't, however, explain how Odium could have killed Honor - he presumably did so slowly, as Honor started to go insane around the recreance, but without Cultivation killing Odium as he did so.

My theory is that Odium manipulates other Shards into acting against their Intent directly and indirectly while he can do almost anything without violating his Intent of hatred and being hated, and to bring things apart. (he only cannot act selflessly, but is allowed to fake it through deceit and betrayal).

Note that Odium does not have to hate himself or make himself be hated, just as Preservation does not preserve itself above all others, and Ruin doesn't need to destroy himself. This is probably why he picked this Shard in the first place, and doesn't pick up any others - it's one of the best for attack and defense against other Shards.

Harmony is also vulnerable because of this as he can continually be pushed off balance about whether to be harmonius, preserve, destroy, and to intervene or not.

The Red mist around Scadrial, and the red-eyed Faceless immortals is presumably another Shard trying this to break Sazed, although it might be Autonomy rather than Odium.

Both Honor and Cultivation are Invested in Roshar (possibly in Braize), increasing their control over it, but also reducing their power for other purposes. I think Odium tends to infect other shards splinters/spren/magic reducing their flexibility for a small cost of it's own.

This is probably what the Unmade are - mixture of cultivation and honor investiture that were on Roshar, Braize and Ashyn in the Greater Roshar star system, but that then infected by Odium to deny their use and possible reabsorption by Honor and Cultivation.

Odium has also damaged Honor by subverting the Heralds and the Knight Radiant, and manipulating Honor constantly into trolley problem situations where he has to let other people violate their oaths or go against the law of the land - for example choosing between Humans and the indigenous inhabitant of Roshar - the Parshmen.

Skybreakers and Windrunners represent the two sides of Honor - whether to be Good or to be Lawful, and how Odium has attacked him through this dichotomy.

So all Vessels are linked to their Shard through Connection in holding it, and all are to some extent vulnerable because of this. Shard holding multiple shards are even more vulnerable because they have to balance the Intents.

So what if a group of people (say 10) held a Shard's power collectively?

They'd each have a tenth of the power, but also a tenth of the intent, and could interpret that intent differently.

They could act collectively as a Pantheon + one shard, but each personally intervene depending on their area without risking going against their intent.

If one or two goes rogue or gets corrupted by their intents the rest can destroy them and reassign their "purview".

I could think of two ways this could happen - splinter the Shard into 10 pieces gradually and once they are stable have individual people claim them, or work out away to link 10 people together and share the connection equally.

Or in other words the prototypes of the (Un)Made and Heralds, which both proved to fail though the efforts of Odium.

Hold one, get two free!

So if you could do this with one shard, why not with three at once?
Each person would hold 0.1 Honor, 0.1 Cultivation, and 0.1 Odium for 0.3 of a shard.

All of them acting together would be the match of any 3 shards, but it'd take 4 of them to match Endowment, and 7 of them to match Harmony.

Since each Vessel would be able define their own Intent, you could then have an even wider range of personalities, and shifting Odium into the actual role of Passion.

For example -

Dalinar - Holder of the Pseudo Shard "Unity"

Honor - I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together
Cultivation - I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man
Odium - The Thrill - blood brothers, shared combat.


I'm not saying he's there yet, but I think this what the series might be going towards.

Cultivation Endgame

Cultivation seems to be one of the best shards at foresight.
It's possible that even if she kills Rayse, his Shard Odium might need a bearer immediately to avoid destroying the planetary system. If she pulls what Odium did on Sel, then all the Spren in the cognitive realm would get destroyed. If she leaves it alone, it might become something like the Evil on Threnody (which might be a remnant of Ambition). Moash could pick Odium up (shard version of The Lord Ruler maybe?).

If she picks Odium up, it will likely corrupt her (Odium + Cultivation = Torture).

If she picks Honor up to compensate, she might already have a personal interpretation of it which would make things worse (Cultivation+Honor = Slavery) and Odium would make things even worse then that (Odium+Cultivation+Honor=Eugenics)

So if she identifies good candiates beforehand, and crafts their interpretations of each of the three shards, she can retire (either die like Vin to be with Tanavast, or do a Hoid) , knowing her chosen Pantheon can handle things.

And as people get tired of holding a pseudo-shard, or get too corrupted, they can choose a successor.

[DSCrankshaw]

So I've got a rambly ending theory of the Stormlight Archive Ending, but it involves spoilers not only potentially all Brandon's Cosmere Works, but any Words Of Brandon he's stated on here (wob.coppermind.net/).


So this theory is pretty out there, so I'm not going to reference all words of Brandon directly right now - I'll do so if people look into it though. This is also based on various speculation on Vessel's I've read on the 17th Shard.

So we know investiture=energy=mass in the Cosmere, and at the Shattering of Adonalasium all investiture was aligned to one of the 16 shards.

We also know that though the power of Adonalasium is infinite (or at least encompassing the entire universe), the Shards are not all powerful, as they have finite minds/souls (which is why Sazed can't sense every use of Ruin/Preservation aligned investiture in the universe).

The Vessel is like a hosepipe attached to an ocean in the Spritual Realm - they can stretch themselves through more power but there are still limits. For example in Mistborn Secret History (MSH) Kelsier exploited the fact Ruin is not omnipresent, and that his attention was elsewhere when speaking to Spook.

Also from MSH we know that Vessels are bound to their power by Connection - which can be hacked and artificially created. Without this connection to a Vessel, the Power can be then splintered, and manipulated by another shard. For a full connection/power, the Vessel needs to have a presence to the Physical realm, unlike a Cognitive shadow (not sure if Kelsier with a body or a Herald could wield the full power of a Shard).

A Vessel is bound and manipulated by their Intent, which can corrupt them over time, and potentially even puppet them. However a Vessel holder also interprets their intent to the extent of synoyms. Ati thought Ruin was wholly evil and destructive, and so was he in the end. Sazed however more easily recognises the role of Ruin in recycling and creation, and part of the natural order. Dalinar, Sadeas or Amaram holding Honor would each interpret Honor differently (e.g. Amaram might interpret Honor as Glory - more about Good PR)

An example of this was on Sel (Elantris planet), where AonDor is the remnants of Devotion (Aona) and Dominion (Skai) Powers. Odium ripped the powers from the Spiritual realm, and jammed them together in the Cognitive realm preventing people from picking them up. Seons and Skaze are splinters cast off from this process.

We also know from Oathbringer that Odium stopped trying to destroy the Stormfather because it meant he was open to a strike from Cultivation which could destroy him in turn.

This doesn't, however, explain how Odium could have killed Honor - he presumably did so slowly, as Honor started to go insane around the recreance, but without Cultivation killing Odium as he did so.

My theory is that Odium manipulates other Shards into acting against their Intent directly and indirectly while he can do almost anything without violating his Intent of hatred and being hated, and to bring things apart. (he only cannot act selflessly, but is allowed to fake it through deceit and betrayal).

Note that Odium does not have to hate himself or make himself be hated, just as Preservation does not preserve itself above all others, and Ruin doesn't need to destroy himself. This is probably why he picked this Shard in the first place, and doesn't pick up any others - it's one of the best for attack and defense against other Shards.

Harmony is also vulnerable because of this as he can continually be pushed off balance about whether to be harmonius, preserve, destroy, and to intervene or not.

The Red mist around Scadrial, and the red-eyed Faceless immortals is presumably another Shard trying this to break Sazed, although it might be Autonomy rather than Odium.

Both Honor and Cultivation are Invested in Roshar (possibly in Braize), increasing their control over it, but also reducing their power for other purposes. I think Odium tends to infect other shards splinters/spren/magic reducing their flexibility for a small cost of it's own.

This is probably what the Unmade are - mixture of cultivation and honor investiture that were on Roshar, Braize and Ashyn in the Greater Roshar star system, but that then infected by Odium to deny their use and possible reabsorption by Honor and Cultivation.

Odium has also damaged Honor by subverting the Heralds and the Knight Radiant, and manipulating Honor constantly into trolley problem situations where he has to let other people violate their oaths or go against the law of the land - for example choosing between Humans and the indigenous inhabitant of Roshar - the Parshmen.

Skybreakers and Windrunners represent the two sides of Honor - whether to be Good or to be Lawful, and how Odium has attacked him through this dichotomy.

So all Vessels are linked to their Shard through Connection in holding it, and all are to some extent vulnerable because of this. Shard holding multiple shards are even more vulnerable because they have to balance the Intents.

So what if a group of people (say 10) held a Shard's power collectively?

They'd each have a tenth of the power, but also a tenth of the intent, and could interpret that intent differently.

They could act collectively as a Pantheon + one shard, but each personally intervene depending on their area without risking going against their intent.

If one or two goes rogue or gets corrupted by their intents the rest can destroy them and reassign their "purview".

I could think of two ways this could happen - splinter the Shard into 10 pieces gradually and once they are stable have individual people claim them, or work out away to link 10 people together and share the connection equally.

Or in other words the prototypes of the (Un)Made and Heralds, which both proved to fail though the efforts of Odium.

Hold one, get two free!

So if you could do this with one shard, why not with three at once?
Each person would hold 0.1 Honor, 0.1 Cultivation, and 0.1 Odium for 0.3 of a shard.

All of them acting together would be the match of any 3 shards, but it'd take 4 of them to match Endowment, and 7 of them to match Harmony.

Since each Vessel would be able define their own Intent, you could then have an even wider range of personalities, and shifting Odium into the actual role of Passion.

For example -

Dalinar - Holder of the Pseudo Shard "Unity"

Honor - I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together
Cultivation - I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man
Odium - The Thrill - blood brothers, shared combat.


I'm not saying he's there yet, but I think this what the series might be going towards.

Cultivation Endgame

Cultivation seems to be one of the best shards at foresight.
It's possible that even if she kills Rayse, his Shard Odium might need a bearer immediately to avoid destroying the planetary system. If she pulls what Odium did on Sel, then all the Spren in the cognitive realm would get destroyed. If she leaves it alone, it might become something like the Evil on Threnody (which might be a remnant of Ambition). Moash could pick Odium up (shard version of The Lord Ruler maybe?).

If she picks Odium up, it will likely corrupt her (Odium + Cultivation = Torture).

If she picks Honor up to compensate, she might already have a personal interpretation of it which would make things worse (Cultivation+Honor = Slavery) and Odium would make things even worse then that (Odium+Cultivation+Honor=Eugenics)

So if she identifies good candiates beforehand, and crafts their interpretations of each of the three shards, she can retire (either die like Vin to be with Tanavast, or do a Hoid) , knowing her chosen Pantheon can handle things.

And as people get tired of holding a pseudo-shard, or get too corrupted, they can choose a successor.


This seems like a good time to break out my theory.

Everyone claims Odium is the Shard of Hatred, but he claims that he is the Shard of passion, meaning all passions. What if they're both right?

Holding all sorts of conflicting passions at the same time would drive a man mad, but what if he split those passions off from himself, either creating or changing spren for that purpose? Thus, the Unmade. We already know that some of them are base passions, like gluttony or the thrill. What if they all are passions? Maybe some of them are more human because their passions are more complex, higher order.

[Doran]

You know I was originally going to say I'd found a quote against DSCrankshaw's theory, but it actually supports it instead.



The letter to Hoid in the Words of Radiance epigraph states




He bears the weight of God's own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context. He is what we made him to be, old friend. And that is what he, unfortunately, wished to become.


It sounds like "the virtues" refers to the other Shards - perhaps in particular Devotion, Cultivation etc. But this could instead mean, as DSCrankshaw says - other passions or virtues - and a classic misdirection.

Perhaps if the Unmade were once human, Rayse pulled a trick similar to the 9 Ringwraiths from Lord Of The Rings - he split off pieces of himself that were high in Intent, but low in control, and turned them into Spren or gave them to humans to corrupt ala Ruin.

Rayse does seem to be someone who would optimise his Shard as much as possible.

[JeenLeen]

A question about killing gods, which is tied to spoilers from Mistborn

Do we know how Preservation and Ruin died?

It seemed like Ruin managed to eventually kill Preservation, but I forget the details or how Ruin was dead, such that Sazed eventually got both Shards. Could someone elaborate?


Bringing it up here for pondering on how Honor could have been killed by Odium (or his forces) in the past, and general speculation on how Shards die in this setting.

[Majin]

A question about killing gods, which is tied to spoilers from Mistborn

Do we know how Preservation and Ruin died?

It seemed like Ruin managed to eventually kill Preservation, but I forget the details or how Ruin was dead, such that Sazed eventually got both Shards. Could someone elaborate?


Bringing it up here for pondering on how Honor could have been killed by Odium (or his forces) in the past, and general speculation on how Shards die in this setting.

Vin basically sacrificed herself to kill Ruin. She could do this, because the intent of Preservation hadn't had time to warp Vin's personality.

I think original Preservation died, because he sacrificed most of his mind to imprison Ruin. He seemed to be decaying afterwards, and Ruin might have finished him off after he got free, as he had more power then.

Odium seems to be afraid of extending himself too much, and Cultivation killing him. Odium himself seems to have some method of killing other shards, but I think Sanderson mentioned it takes a while (or a while to recover after). There might have been hints that Odium somehow drove Honor insane.

[JeenLeen]

On some of the letters at the start of chapters:

Is it general consensus that these are letters to Hoid/Wit, from different Shards he is contacting?
Is it thought that the one who seems friendly but says it is limited from action due to maintaining its conflicting powers likely Preservation-Ruin?

[Doran]

Brandon has:

Confirmed the Words of Radiance reply letter is from Frost on Yolen (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/93-odysseycon-2016/#e2682)
Confirmed all 3 Oathbringer letters are from Shards (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8401)
We have seen the first Shard's world (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175/#e8437)
Confirmed Autonomy/Bavadin wrote the second OB letter (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8401)

[DSCrankshaw]

Brandon has:

Confirmed the Words of Radiance reply letter is from Frost on Yolen (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/93-odysseycon-2016/#e2682)
Confirmed all 3 Oathbringer letters are from Shards (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8401)
We have seen the first Shard's world (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175/#e8437)
Confirmed Autonomy/Bavadin wrote the second OB letter (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8401)



All that said, it seems likely that the last one is from Harmony/Sazed/Preservation-Ruin.

[DSCrankshaw]

Speaking of epigraphs, there's a lot in Part 3, in the Radiants' gemstones, if you read carefully:


First, the Recreance.

We're led to believe that it's because the Radiants found out that they weren't originally from Roshar, and because they discovered that Surgebinding had destroyed their original home. And that's part of it, but there's a piece missing. No matter how idealistic you are, you're not going to walk away from everything because you found out that some of your ancestors were bloodthirsty conquerors 4,000 years ago. I'm fairly certain that no one alive today is not descended from some bloodthirsty conqueror 4,000 years ago.

No, what the Radiants felt so guilty about was something much more immediate, something that happened within their lifetimes. Like, just before they walked away. Remember when the Recreance happened. Jasnah thought that it occurred during the False Desolation, the last time the Radiants fought the Voidbringers. The vision makes clear that the fighting was still going on--the soldiers at Feverstone Keep thought it might be an attack at first, when the Radiants showed up.

The epigraphs in Part 3 of Oathbringer reveal enough to determine what really happened. When the Radiants were leaving Urithiru, they already had a plan in place to deny the voidlight to the parsh, so they wouldn't be able to reach the forms of power. They would do so by trapping Bo-Ado-Mishram. But they worried that it would have an unintended side effects on the Parsh. (See the epigraphs for Chapters 77-82 of Oathbringer.)

And indeed it did. What caused the Recreance was not just discovering that the Parsh were the rightful inhabitants of Roshar. Not just discovering that they had destroyed their former homeworld. It was learning those things the same time as they accidentally turned the Parsh into mindless slaves.

Once that happened, why didn't they try to undo it? They probably did; some at least. But while some would think returning the Parsh to thinking beings would be a moral necessity, others wouldn't want to release an Unmade who would give power to their enemies. I suspect that the Skybreakers were the ones who fought to keep the Bo-Ado-Mishram from being released. There was no Recreance for them. Even if they were uneasy with the decision, even if some did turn from their vows, as an organization they continued. (How much of that was because they had a Herald leading them?)

Incidentally, it was Gavilar's plan to release Bo-Ado-Mishram that got him assassinated. He thought that by doing so, he could start a new Desolation and force the return of the Heralds. But the Parshendi killed him to prevent their kinsmen from being restored, since they feared the return of their gods even more.

And they accidentally brought it about anyway by trusting Venli's words about the stormspren.

Second, the Sibling.

This one's obvious, since the Stormfather refers to his siblings, including one who is slumbering, who had been hurt enough by you (meaning the Radiants).

The Sibling is referred to several times in the epigraphs. The Radiants fear that the Sibling has withdrawn because of the infighting among the Radiants. They think that's the reason Urithiru tower is dying. But the one who left the zircons in drawer 1-1 believes that the Sibling did not withdraw by intent (epigraphs to Chapters 68-70). Which suggests that someone, or something, forced the Sibling to slumber.

The Stormfather seems to believe that it's the Radiants' fault. But he may be working from the same assumptions that they are, and doesn't realize what really happened.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Speaking of epigraphs, there's a lot in Part 3, in the Radiants' gemstones, if you read carefully:


First, the Recreance.

We're led to believe that it's because the Radiants found out that they weren't originally from Roshar, and because they discovered that Surgebinding had destroyed their original home. And that's part of it, but there's a piece missing. No matter how idealistic you are, you're not going to walk away from everything because you found out that some of your ancestors were bloodthirsty conquerors 4,000 years ago. I'm fairly certain that no one alive today is not descended from some bloodthirsty conqueror 4,000 years ago.

No, what the Radiants felt so guilty about was something much more immediate, something that happened within their lifetimes. Like, just before they walked away. Remember when the Recreance happened. Jasnah thought that it occurred during the False Desolation, the last time the Radiants fought the Voidbringers. The vision makes clear that the fighting was still going on--the soldiers at Feverstone Keep thought it might be an attack at first, when the Radiants showed up.

The epigraphs in Part 3 of Oathbringer reveal enough to determine what really happened. When the Radiants were leaving Urithiru, they already had a plan in place to deny the voidlight to the parsh, so they wouldn't be able to reach the forms of power. They would do so by trapping Bo-Ado-Mishram. But they worried that it would have an unintended side effects on the Parsh. (See the epigraphs for Chapters 77-82 of Oathbringer.)

And indeed it did. What caused the Recreance was not just discovering that the Parsh were the rightful inhabitants of Roshar. Not just discovering that they had destroyed their former homeworld. It was learning those things the same time as they accidentally turned the Parsh into mindless slaves.

Once that happened, why didn't they try to undo it? They probably did; some at least. But while some would think returning the Parsh to thinking beings would be a moral necessity, others wouldn't want to release an Unmade who would give power to their enemies. I suspect that the Skybreakers were the ones who fought to keep the Bo-Ado-Mishram from being released. There was no Recreance for them. Even if they were uneasy with the decision, even if some did turn from their vows, as an organization they continued. (How much of that was because they had a Herald leading them?)

Incidentally, it was Gavilar's plan to release Bo-Ado-Mishram that got him assassinated. He thought that by doing so, he could start a new Desolation and force the return of the Heralds. But the Parshendi killed him to prevent their kinsmen from being restored, since they feared the return of their gods even more.

And they accidentally brought it about anyway by trusting Venli's words about the stormspren.

Second, the Sibling.

This one's obvious, since the Stormfather refers to his siblings, including one who is slumbering, who had been hurt enough by you (meaning the Radiants).

The Sibling is referred to several times in the epigraphs. The Radiants fear that the Sibling has withdrawn because of the infighting among the Radiants. They think that's the reason Urithiru tower is dying. But the one who left the zircons in drawer 1-1 believes that the Sibling did not withdraw by intent (epigraphs to Chapters 68-70). Which suggests that someone, or something, forced the Sibling to slumber.

The Stormfather seems to believe that it's the Radiants' fault. But he may be working from the same assumptions that they are, and doesn't realize what really happened.


Given that we know that the spren of the Bondsmiths are Godspren, and there are three known gods in the Roshar system... and that we've seen two of them, the Stormfather and the Nightwatcher, who correspond to Honor and Cultivation.

Only one god left that we know of... Odium. And we know that Bo-Ado-Mishram is "lighteyed among the unmade"...

I strongly suspect that the Sibling is Bo-Ado-Mishram.

[Doran]

Not necessarily, it could be that the Sibiling is a mix of Honor and Culivation.
It seems the Sibiling might acts as the AI Spren for Urithuru, and it would be odd if she was simultaneously leading the Parshmen troops in the false desolation.

Also I TLDR'd my Stormlight Archive ending theory:

Ten beings each get a tenth of cultivation, odium and honour's power, to become a "Pantheon" of Roshar. Each would choose their own intent, and minimise corruption.

Dalinar would be Unity with his odium piece being the Thrill.

[JeenLeen]

In the Arcs Arcanum (sp) at the back, I'm unclear about what some of the Surges mean. I know we might just not know yet, but can anyone tell me what Realmantic <word here>, Strong Axial <word here>, and Soft Axial <word here> mean?

Sorry for the <word here>s, but I'm away from book so I forget the exact term. Transformation, connection, or something like that, I think it was. I'm guessing Realmantic is a term related to the magic system underlying the Cosmere, but the others sound something like the strong and weak forces in physics.

[Adderbane]

In the Arcs Arcanum (sp) at the back, I'm unclear about what some of the Surges mean. I know we might just not know yet, but can anyone tell me what Realmantic <word here>, Strong Axial <word here>, and Soft Axial <word here> mean?

Sorry for the <word here>s, but I'm away from book so I forget the exact term. Transformation, connection, or something like that, I think it was. I'm guessing Realmantic is a term related to the magic system underlying the Cosmere, but the others sound something like the strong and weak forces in physics.

Axial seems to refer to atoms or molecules. There was one moment in Oathbringer, where either Jasnah or the smoke lady from the interlude mentions "axies lining up". The exact nature of the two is not entirely clear, particularly since one, (shared by Bondsmiths and Stonewards) doesn't quite behave the same for the two orders unlike most surges.

[DSCrankshaw]

... particularly since one, (shared by Bondsmiths and Stonewards) doesn't quite behave the same for the two orders unlike most surges.

Is that really the case? What Renarin does with light, and what he does with healing, seem to be pretty different than what Shallan and Lift do with those things. Now, it may be that it's different because Renarin bonded a corrupted spren. Or it could be that surges tend to be different in how they're used between Orders. Granted the counterexamples--Szeth and Kaladin, Kaladin and Dalinar, Shallan and Jasnah--are numerous enough to suggest that maybe it is just the corrupted spren, but it could be that some surges tend to work the same way for each Radiant Order, and some work differently. So far it seems like half are the same, and half are different.

[theMycon]

Is that really the case? [...] it could be that some surges tend to work the same way for each Radiant Order, and some work differently. So far it seems like half are the same, and half are different.

My personal pet theory is that they all _can_ work the same way for different orders, just most of the surgebinder's we've seen haven't been surgebinding very long, and so their technique is mostly hobbled-together guesses & instinct that only access part of what they can do.

I'd be surprised if, by the end of the series, Shallan weren't able to mimic 95% of Renarin's tricks with light, for example. That said, Nale & his crew could provide us with a counter example if their wind running is just fundamentally different from Kal's.

[Delusion]

I might be remembering wrong but doesn't Stormfather say to Dalinar outright that surges work differently for different orders? During one of the visions Dalinar sees a Stoneward (I think) use a surge to manipulate stone and asks Stormfather if he can do that but the Stormfather tells him that it would work differently for him. I may be remembering wrong though.

[Shadow of the Sun]

I might be remembering wrong but doesn't Stormfather say to Dalinar outright that surges work differently for different orders? During one of the visions Dalinar sees a Stoneward (I think) use a surge to manipulate stone and asks Stormfather if he can do that but the Stormfather tells him that it would work differently for him. I may be remembering wrong though.

This is true, but Bondsmiths are kind of an outlier compared to the other orders already, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was just a Bondsmith quirk.

I'm personally going to theorise that the "basics" of the Surges are the same between orders - it's only when you get to more advanced uses that the particulars become different. So, a Windrunner and a Skybreaker can both do the whole "fly around", but Skybreakers might not be able to use the Windrunners' ability to pull stuff towards them, for example. I expect that Truthwatchers can Lightweave basically in the same way that a Lightweaver can in as much as they can make images, but they probably can't assume identities or change people in the same way as a Lightweaver can.

[Majin]

I think it might have been mentioned or theorized that different combinations of surges produce extra effects. The different effects of same surges might be related to that.

Apparently this is the same for Twinborn in Mistborn. At least Khriss implies so to Wax when they briefly meet (she asked if Wax has noticed anything odd when he uses his Mistborn and Ferruchemist abilities at the same time.

[JeenLeen]

This is true, but Bondsmiths are kind of an outlier compared to the other orders already, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was just a Bondsmith quirk.

I'm personally going to theorise that the "basics" of the Surges are the same between orders - it's only when you get to more advanced uses that the particulars become different. So, a Windrunner and a Skybreaker can both do the whole "fly around", but Skybreakers might not be able to use the Windrunners' ability to pull stuff towards them, for example. I expect that Truthwatchers can Lightweave basically in the same way that a Lightweaver can in as much as they can make images, but they probably can't assume identities or change people in the same way as a Lightweaver can.

I thought this was due to both the Surges that Windrunners have being useful to flight, while Skybreakers have only one Surge that impacts flight.
I completely admit that I could be wrong that both Surges held by Windrunners can impact flight. I'm not really clear on what Surges Windrunners have, except that they seem to have Gravitation as one of them.


I think Szeth said that Skybreakers can't use all the Lashings that a Windrunner (or dude with an honorblade) can. I recall he at least made some comment about Skybreakers not being as good at (or, rather, as capable of as complicated techniques for) flight as Kaladin. This makes me think that some Lashings are done via a combination of 2 Surges, instead of just being one Surge.


Although I agree that the 'minor Mistborn spoiler' from above lends evidence to Surges working differently for different orders.

[Shadow of the Sun]

I thought this was due to both the Surges that Windrunners have being useful to flight, while Skybreakers have only one Surge that impacts flight.
I completely admit that I could be wrong that both Surges held by Windrunners can impact flight. I'm not really clear on what Surges Windrunners have, except that they seem to have Gravitation as one of them.


I think Szeth said that Skybreakers can't use all the Lashings that a Windrunner (or dude with an honorblade) can. I recall he at least made some comment about Skybreakers not being as good at (or, rather, as capable of as complicated techniques for) flight as Kaladin. This makes me think that some Lashings are done via a combination of 2 Surges, instead of just being one Surge.


Although I agree that the 'minor Mistborn spoiler' from above lends evidence to Surges working differently for different orders.

Windrunners have the Surges of Gravitation and Adhesion. Gravitation they share with Skybreakers, and it's the "I'm going to fly around" surge. They share Adhesion with Bondsmiths. So far, Kaladin (and Szeth's) use of the Surge of Adhesion was limited to using it stick things together - like sticking The Lopen to a wall - or making patches of ground super sticky so that enemies would get stuck to them.

We don't have anything to suggest that the "pulling arrows towards things" has too much to do with Adhesion, except if it involves causing the Stormlight/lashing to adhere to something else.

[lord_khaine]

Completed the book at last, and dam it had to many awesome moments for me to recall.
Of course Shallan once more steals the spotlight, but there were a few others that stood out.


Khaladins brief worry about having Syl yel uncuraging words the next time he were banging someone certainly had me howling with laughter.

But it was also intriguing how the spren of Odium can apperently change side. It was likely also the reason for why we newer got any POV chapters for the Blackthorns younger son
(im horrible at names).

And does anyone have any better theory about Venli's mysterious spren companion than it somehow being the spirit of her sister, returned somehow in the same fashion as the fused?

[Brumski]

Completed the book at last, and dam it had to many awesome moments for me to recall.
Of course Shallan once more steals the spotlight, but there were a few others that stood out.


Khaladins brief worry about having Syl yel uncuraging words the next time he were banging someone certainly had me howling with laughter.

But it was also intriguing how the spren of Odium can apperently change side. It was likely also the reason for why we newer got any POV chapters for the Blackthorns younger son
(im horrible at names).

And does anyone have any better theory about Venli's mysterious spren companion than it somehow being the spirit of her sister, returned somehow in the same fashion as the fused?




I think for Kaladin it would be the first time.

Venli's spren is the same (probably Willshaper) spren that was around Eshonai in the previous book, it is specifically not Eshonai's spirit.

[Doran]

There are strong hints she is the daughter of the Lightspren / Reacher captain Ico as he mentions she ran off somewhere.

[lord_khaine]

I doubt it would be the first time for Kaladin. He lived for several years as a regular spearman. And even had that ladyfriend. But i also just think that at this point he is a little to broken to really care about that sort of things.

And i see.. a little sad, had hoped part of Eshonai would have survived.

Whats peoples theory about those listed in the synopsis?
The Captain is likely Kaladin. And The Spy likely Shallan.
The King is Dalinar.

But i could not figure out the Stonewalker or the Traitor.

[Douglas]

Whats peoples theory about those listed in the synopsis?
The Captain is likely Kaladin. And The Spy likely Shallan.
The King is Dalinar.

But i could not figure out the Stonewalker or the Traitor.
The Stonewalker is obviously Szeth. I think the Traitor is either Amaram or Moash, I'm not quite sure which.

[lord_khaine]

Oh yes of course, that sort of Stonewalker. I though about the Knight order and got confused.

But the Traitor is someone who Radiance shines towards, who was broken by ambition and who seeks freedom.
That does not really seem to fit anyone i can think off.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Oh yes of course, that sort of Stonewalker. I though about the Knight order and got confused.

But the Traitor is someone who Radiance shines towards, who was broken by ambition and who seeks freedom.
That does not really seem to fit anyone i can think off.



It's Venli.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah just figured it out myself at last. How the traitor would not need to be towards humanity.
And how it was Venli's ambition that broke her.

[Douglas]

It's Venli.
It seems so obvious now that you've pointed it out. Guess I was stuck thinking about the wrong context.

[Silver Swift]

Apparently this is the same for Twinborn in Mistborn. At least Khriss implies so to Wax when they briefly meet (she asked if Wax has noticed anything odd when he uses his Mistborn and Ferruchemist abilities at the same time.

Wasn't that just her being curious whether Wax's feruchemy conserves momentum, (rather than any specific interaction between it and steelpushing)?