WaT Chapters 14 / 15

[BinarySecond]

9 hours ago, Mayalaran said:

Hey umm so what about Jasna's past? Lets talk about that. Padded walls and everything, I mean that's pretty extreme.

Yes it is mentioned a few times (Oathbringer I recall) but basically she was locked up as a child.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

10 hours ago, Kesamijr said:

It struck me as returned-esque too? On my reread, Shallan specifically mentions that the hair of her and Adolin’s child would be “weird” before cutting herself off in early book Shallan fashion.

It would be blond, black and red strains. That is pretty weird. Plus, if she had the Royal Locks, she would not be horrified at the suggestion of cutting her hair off.

10 hours ago, Kesamijr said:

CS can totally change their shape. This is where Hoid potentially comes in?

He also carries a load of Breaths, which can work on a physical body.

 

[The Stick]

I have a feeling that Hoid just isn't going to play nicely with Cultivation. I wouldn't be surprised if he punches her like Kelsier.

[BinarySecond]

1 minute ago, The Stick said:

I have a feeling that Hoid just isn't going to play nicely with Cultivation. I wouldn't be surprised if he punches her like Kelsier.

He couldn't if he wanted to 

[The Stick]

6 minutes ago, BinarySecond said:

He couldn't if he wanted to 

I think he probably could. Cultivation has no actual body, and he knows attacking her does her no harm. I think he probably could.

[BinarySecond]

1 hour ago, The Stick said:

I think he probably could. Cultivation has no actual body, and he knows attacking her does her no harm. I think he probably could.

I dispute that she doesn't have a body. We've seen the bodies of every dead shard holder.

I thought the reason he could punch Kelsier was because he was dead, not because of perception though; concede on that one.

[alder24]

20 minutes ago, BinarySecond said:

I dispute that she doesn't have a body. We've seen the bodies of every dead shard holder.

Shards' bodies are their physical investiture, not a human body. When a Vessel Ascends, their body is vaporized by the power and it stop existing. However a dead Shard drops their Vessel's body because there are some remnants of it in the power itself and the power reconstructs this body and spits it out. 

But a Shard can manifest a physical body and that's most likely what Cultivation is doing right now, that's what Odium more or less did at the end of OB.

Spoiler

LewsTherinTelescope

In the Liar of Partinel samples, we see fain life is covered in skullmoss (and iirc seems to have it inside them, from a few mentions of eating fain-touched animals being deadly). If a fain being were to Ascend, would their body retain this skullmoss when they drop (I mean, Leras and Ati seemed to retain their clothes, so it wouldn't surprise me), or would it be killed off by the process?

(Actually, I'm curious about this with microorganisms and such in general with Vessels, but the fain life is what made me think of it.)

Brandon Sanderson

Imagine the body that drops after a Shard dies being the essence being recreated out of energy. It wasn't there all along--it was absorbed into the power, then drops back out as a kind of husk. But it's not literally the same atoms. There has been some strange E=MC2=Investiture shenanigans going on.

LewsTherinTelescope

Interesting. Is this similar to transitioning in and out of the Cognitive through a Perpendicularity?

And does this recreated thing include microorganisms (like the stomach bacteria or something), skullmoss, foot fungus, clothing, etc? Or just the minimum required to count as the body itself? (Leras and Ati tended to appear dressed, as well as Leras having his knife, but them choosing to appear in the Cognitive might not be the same thing as that body.)

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO it here. Good questions as always, though, LTT.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Argent

Can Shards manifest a physical body that can actually interact with the Physical Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

If they wanted to, yes.

Argent

Was that the thing that Odium did at the end of Oathbringer or was that just a projection?

Brandon Sanderson

Umm, it starts to be really difficult to define when you're getting to these points because they generally are such massive wells of Investiture themselves that it's like, is this thing they're creating, like, they are kinda, y'know, then bending the three Realms around the like spacetime with lots of gravity so is that a projection? Is that a real thing? Does it matter? Does that definition--

Argent

Oh! At that point they are almost the same thing, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, exactly.

JordanCon 2018 (April 20, 2018)

 

30 minutes ago, BinarySecond said:

I thought the reason he could punch Kelsier was because he was dead, not because of perception though; concede on that one.

You're right. This was because Kelsier was a Shadow without a body and he shouldn't have felt any pain - Kelsier felt it because of his self-perception (and yes, Hoid's perception matters here as well, Hoid views Kel as a bodiless ghost which can't be hurt with fists - and he is right). But in Kelsier's current state with a body, Hoid can't do it anymore. I think the same would apply to Cultivation - as long as this is a full physical manifestation of a human body, it can feel pain, it can be hurt and Hoid can't punch her. A cognitive manifestation on the other hand, something like Leras did when appearing after a person died, can be punched by Hoid - but because other people saw Cultivation, it's most likely a real body. SH ch 2-1:

Quote

“That was unpleasant,” Drifter said, “yet somehow still satisfying. Apparently you already being dead means I can hurt you.”
[...]
"You don’t have a body, and I don’t have the inclination to actually injure your soul. That pain is caused by your mind; it’s thinking about what should be happening to you, and responding.”

 

Spoiler

AllomancerSam (paraphrased)

As of Lost Metal, is Kelsier alive enough that Hoid can't hurt him anymore?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Um, yes. Hoid would have trouble hurting him in his current state.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

[drunkenbotanist]

22 hours ago, listerfeend said:

I think we've had a WoB that Hoid can do that in a similar way to the Returned, but I can't find it and I don't recall precisely what was said.

So, massive enemy troop movements on multiple fronts, T is already changing the game drastically. Poor Hoid doesn't even realize what exactly he's missing. It should be a clue to him that things are very different from what he'd expect from Rayze though. I wonder how long till Dal and Pals figure that twist out.

I'm betting that Navani and the Sibling are going to come up with fabrial tech 3.0, some kind of mix between the trapping non-consenting spren and the inefficient use of consenting ones. I'll bet that is going to be even more powerful/efficient than either of the two before. Navani not needing to sleep, and being restricted to the tower are both very interesting. I wonder if there are things that Dalinar can do beyond the Bondsmithing that comes with bonding SF that we haven't seen yet. 

 

I do think things like dalinar creating the map with shallan is his version of this. He probably could access that information in his head without shallan also with practice.

[BinarySecond]

18 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Shards' bodies are their physical investiture, not a human body. When a Vessel Ascends, their body is vaporized by the power and it stop existing. However a dead Shard drops their Vessel's body because there are some remnants of it in the power itself and the power reconstructs this body and spits it out. 

But a Shard can manifest a physical body and that's most likely what Cultivation is doing right now, that's what Odium more or less did at the end of OB.

Didn't want to quote the whole thing - Thanks for sharing the WoBs that clarify the nature of the husk! Wouldn't have figured that out just from books.

I stand corrected on all fronts. I do wonder what game Cultivation is playing now - Is she panicking because it failed?

[Dreamwa1ker she/her]

17 hours ago, mdross81 said:

Fairly minor point, but didn’t it feel like we got a higher-than-average number of newly-named minor characters?

Pabolon - Dalinar’s door guard

Hendit - of the Cobalt Guard (“A man with discretion to match his general poise.”) who comes to get Jasnah

Hakindar - Shallan and Adolin’s room steward (love that Adolin’s room steward is a man who knows his soaps)

Kelen - described as the Windrunner squire who had “come to fetch Dalinar” which is weird because I thought that earlier the squire had been called Pabolon? (Edit - nevermind, I misread. Pabolon was a door guard, not the WR squire who came to get Dalinar)

Mararin - Gavinor’s nursemaid

 

Ooh good point. Couple ideas:

1. Most of them are placed very close to Kholins - door guard, Cobalt Guard, room steward, nursemaid (I will not include the windrunner on this one). Turns out they are all spies, maybe Ghostbloods. We already had Felt who was super trusted by Dalinar, what if they're all over.

2. Giving them names because they are gonna die.

Other reactions:

I got a pit in my stomach when Gavinor appeared right then, having nightmares and wanting to play swords with his uncle, feels like foreshadowing for child champion. Even if it's not, I think something pretty bad is being set up with Gavinor, it could be he gets raised up as an antagonist for back half, like a back half Moash. It would be a good villain origin story.

For Hoid visiting other worlds in his sleep, or "astral projecting", it reminds me a bit of Wheel of Time Dreamwalking - I wonder if this is some technique where his consciousness can kind of use the spiritual realm in his sleep to connect/talk/visit?

Who will Hoid contact? I am thinking Frost, I don't think it will be another shard. Although, this would be a cool way to introduce the final shard, maybe "Prudence"? That would be a good Intent for finding something like this.

I want the Jasnah background so badly but bet we won't get it til her book which is probably the very last one...but maybe I'm wrong and we'll find out soon. I had thought maybe it was simply the heresy or hearing voices (spren) but now if they really had her in restraints sounds like they worried about her harming herself or others...

Edited Tuesday at 02:08 PM by Dreamwa1ker

[teknopathetic he/him]

22 hours ago, listerfeend said:

Also, interesting that the epigraphs are back to the Way of Kings

 

It would be annoying if the words for a new herald in The Way of Kings parables haven’t been show to us yet. 

Edited Tuesday at 02:20 PM by teknopathetic

[duladen he/him]

16 hours ago, coolsnow7 said:

I just want to register that, just in case the foreshadowing that Gavilar will make some sort of comeback in this book wasn’t clear enough, Brandon is absolutely screaming to us that that’s happening in this chapter.

Um what now?

[BinarySecond]

Just now, duladen said:

Um what now?

Fused Gavilar basically - Or Evil Herald Gavilar as the Heralds don't need a sacrificial body.

 

My counter to that is: why did Odium bother with Dalinar or Kaladin if he had a "herald" waiting in the wings?

[duladen he/him]

11 minutes ago, BinarySecond said:

Fused Gavilar basically - Or Evil Herald Gavilar as the Heralds don't need a sacrificial body.

 

My counter to that is: why did Odium bother with Dalinar or Kaladin if he had a "herald" waiting in the wings?

Okay I just read jofwu’s theory and I don’t hate it. But I still don’t see @coolsnow7’s point about this chapter screaming that Gavilar is the champion.

Related note… is Gavilar is a Fused, whose body do we think he’ll take?

[BinarySecond]

15 minutes ago, duladen said:

Related note… is Gavilar is a Fused, whose body do we think he’ll take?

Unless we get introduced to a Singer by name I don't think it'll matter much - Most of the named ones that would have more emotional impact are Listeners. 

[Master Silver]

If Cultivation reveals that Taravangian is the new Odium, there is a world where Dalinar seeks to negotiate with him and decides to trust him over Cultivation. In this case, especially if he has lost everything (all three fronts and the contest), Dalinar may decide to be the avatar of the new Shard, War (assuming Taravangian picks up Honor). Ironically, this is what Noadon decided in The Way of Kings vision. A time for the sword. How would the umade The Thrill change if it were of Honor and Odium?

 

Another interesting thing from the chapters is this foreshadowing that Gavinor wants to play swords with his grampa. The contest would be an opportunity. 

[Kesamijr]

10 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

It would be blond, black and red strains. That is pretty weird. Plus, if she had the Royal Locks, she would not be horrified at the suggestion of cutting her hair off.

He also carries a load of Breaths, which can work on a physical body.

 

Yeah no you’re right about the red blonde black being weird, but the way she said it kind of left space/lampshades in early book unreliable narrator Shallan fashion. 
 

Quote

 

Our children would have the strangest hair ever, she thought. His gold and black Alethi locks, my red ones, and…

And was she really thinking about their children? Already? Foolish girl.

Those ellipses and em dashes are all over Shallan’s POV chapters tbf, but it’s also one of the ways Brandon lampshaded things Shallan knows but is repressing/ignoring and the double “and” here was what made me suspect.

But as for being horrified, Shallan is horrified by things like Soulcasting, seeing Cryptics, Shadesmar, things we know (I guess assume tbf, maybe she never Soulcasted as a kid) she’s experienced before but forcibly repressed because of their relation to her past. If Chana IS her mom, Royal Locks feel like the same thing to me! 
 

I didn’t know the part about the breaths though! It could totally be that if they can do that. I also did wonder when postulating originally if high levels of Investiture just allow you to change your physical appearance? Cuz the other notable example we get of this is actually Dilaf? And as far as we know he’s not a CS, he’s just very invested? 
 

I guess to add to that too the other example is Shai, so maybe it’s just Identity rewriting, which is potentially easier to do with Breath, as you mentioned, but can be done with any understanding (subconscious or otherwise) and potentially some investiture? 
 

jk I guess maybe the other example is Yumi, cuz idr if she’s a CS at the beginning of the book? So potentially more evidence for it being an Investiture thing? And Galladon if he isn’t using an illusion in the 1st book interludes?

[+mdross81 he/him]

8 hours ago, Dreamwa1ker said:

Most of them are placed very close to Kholins - door guard, Cobalt Guard, room steward, nursemaid (I will not include the windrunner on this one). Turns out they are all spies, maybe Ghostbloods. We already had Felt who was super trusted by Dalinar, what if they're all over.

I had the same thought, that maybe they’re all spies/agents for some other group. Can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe just the general sense of looming dread among the various members of Team Dalinar in these chapters.

[coolsnow7]

11 hours ago, duladen said:

Okay I just read jofwu’s theory and I don’t hate it. But I still don’t see @coolsnow7’s point about this chapter screaming that Gavilar is the champion.

Related note… is Gavilar is a Fused, whose body do we think he’ll take?

We started off this chapter with a monologue from Dalinar about “oh if only Gavilar was here, he’s so much better at this than I am” - after the reveal in the Prologue that, in fact, Gavilar is NOT better than him at any of this, and is just a Dunning-Krueger megalomaniac of epic proportions.

And that monologue ends “But Gavilar is dead.”

After 5 prologues focused on Gavilar, culminating in one titled “To Live” wherein Gavilar craves immortality at any cost, I think that screams that Gavilar is making a comeback. I did not speculate about the mechanism. And I absolutely do not think there’s anything to be said about whether he will be champion or not.

For what it’s worth: there’s something to that theory in that a) thematically it works very well b) it ties into the possible mechanism “Dalinar loses legitimacy as leader of humanity => Dalinar can no longer constrain Odium” and c) Gavilar is a perfect representative of Odium’s intent.
 

But that’s not nearly enough for me to say “I’m confident he will be champion” especially since for him to be some sort of human Fused, Odium would have had to have been planning that for years for no apparent reason.

Edited Wednesday at 02:20 AM by coolsnow7

[coolsnow7]

18 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

In 8 days? Against a group of people who are not idiots? While the Knights Radiant still control the Oathgates, have all the magic and most of the shard blades? They'd have to switch sides. It's too late for that, once they are already occupied.

Now if you really want to put Dalinar in a tight spot and get Adolin to rebel instantly, you won't pick Gavilar or a child. You'd pick Dalinar's first wife respectively Adolin's mother.

They would not have to switch sides. They would simply have to give up. We already know from The Sunlit Man that the leader of the Windrunners does so at some point. If he’s willing to do so, I don’t think it’s such a stretch for the other monarchs who joined the coalition reluctantly in the first place to do so.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

3 hours ago, coolsnow7 said:

They would not have to switch sides. They would simply have to give up. We already know from The Sunlit Man that the leader of the Windrunners does so at some point. If he’s willing to do so, I don’t think it’s such a stretch for the other monarchs who joined the coalition reluctantly in the first place to do so.

Giving up without switching sides is just stupid.  What are you getting? You agree to be conquered.

[coolsnow7]

45 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Giving up without switching sides is just stupid.  What are you getting? You agree to be conquered.

… unless you don’t. Unless Odium has something up his sleeve to make this a viable offer for everyone except Dalinar. Would that surprise anyone? We have a whole ~1,000 pages left for that to be developed, which by contrast is not nearly enough to set up the nicest guy in the series killing his father in service of the God of Hatred.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

45 minutes ago, coolsnow7 said:

… unless you don’t. Unless Odium has something up his sleeve to make this a viable offer for everyone except Dalinar. Would that surprise anyone? We have a whole ~1,000 pages left for that to be developed, which by contrast is not nearly enough to set up the nicest guy in the series killing his father in service of the God of Hatred.

Sure, but by accepting such an offer they'd aid Odium's side. At a mimimum they'd cut the Radiant side off from trade. The war has progressed beyond the point where you cannot get back to neutrality.

[Smye]

On 9/23/2024 at 11:23 AM, Confused said:

Too soon for me to think through all the stuff raised by this selection. I'll leave my weekly limerick summary, then go cogitate a bit more. The one thing I will say is that physical love does NOT end when you turn 70!!! In case you were wondering...  

Our heroes are wakeful, can’t sleep.

Three cities attacked in one leap!

With love in the air,

So many are bare.

Soon they will die and we’ll weep.

All the best! C.

Storming fabulous!

[Kesamijr]

On 9/23/2024 at 10:54 AM, alder24 said:

Lifespren attracted to Navani?? That’s a surprise. I did think that each Bondsmith has its one type of platespren, but I thought Lifespren would be Nightwatcher’s spren, not the Siblings. Well, there is still a chance because many other types of spren are following Navani, but Lifespren seem to be dominating. 

Happen to be rereading Edgedancer rn, and it almost certainly feels like Lifespren are Edgedancer platespren? Get more mentions around Lift than windspren to Kaladin and creationspren to Shallan. Wonder if Bondsmith use the same spren as other orders, but after reading this I’m 80% lifespren are edgedancer armor