Cheese Ninja

I don't think Shalash going around destroying artwork is an attempt to erase herself from written records, it is on far too small a scale. I think she feels guilty, and finds it cathartic to destroy herself in effigy. Also, did all of you catch the BS confirmation that she was in fact Jezrien's daughter? Oddly enough, she's dark-skinned, but no mention is made of Jezrien being dark-skinned, so either her mother was, Jezrien is and that fact was skipped over, or she was adopted. I think I know the quote you're talking about, but I can't find it either. I think the question was something about how Kalak had commented on the fighting be more intense than usual, but also noting that it was odd that only one of them had died in it. It actually made me think that an internal betrayal was slightly more likely.

Could you get a Roshar date for some event between when Kaladin becomes the Bridge 4 leader and the end of the book? Or even just the range of months that period covers (3 at most, probably just 1 and a half). I want to know how they match up with epigraph dates. If he does answer, and uses a Roshar date, take careful note because a lot of them sound very similar. Ideally he'd be able to give a month-week-day date. Way of Kings should be almost entirely in 1173, not counting prologues, preludes, and flashbacks. I'm think you'll get a lot of RAFOs from those listed questions (1,3-5). It looks like 3 is based on that "His punishment declared that they didn’t." line from the prologue. That seems a bit too major and vital to Szeth's backstory to be given away. 2 is odd, in that you've interpreted the usage of Szeth's grandfather's name to be endorsement, which isn't something I've seen before, but I can see your reasoning, even if I don't necessarily agree with it. After being called Szeth-son-Neturo: Does that mean his grandfather's name can be freely sullied, or is it just a matter of needing something to call him by besides simply "Szeth"? 6 looks like a question he might answer with a simple yes, and 7 with either a yes/no, or a very brief comment about there having been Truthless in the past, but it being a rare thing, and their situations were different from Szeth's. I had to look up who the Vanrial were, but 8 does seem like a pretty good question.

That was probably only a few Desolations in. That vision Dalinar had of him is by the earliest chronological scene in the book. Then Starfalls, then the Prelude. There weren't any Knights Radiants before Nohadon, just Surgebinders. The Prelude, on the other hand, did happen during the Last Desolation, when the Knights Radiants were already well established.

Blade is niftier, but Plate is more practical for a war zone. In a lot of ways it's just a defense vs offense decision. So if I thought I was going to be in a place where threats would be approaching at any times from any direction, I'd go with Plate. If I was living a fairly normal daily life, I'd go with Blade, because it's always on hand, and you never know when you might need to cut through something really big. Also, why title the thread as "Poll" and not use the actual poll function?

Hmm, Moogle and I are mostly in agreement. After all, we're the first two big proponents of the dead guy being Helaran. Me on timewastersguide, and then Moogle on stormblessed. Since you might have missed it: last few posts Amaram knows who it is, but when Kurkistan asked directly if it was Shallan's brother Brandon gave a "RAFO". By the way, could you vote in the poll? Also, there's a poll I made to see who agrees with us. A bit less than 2/3 agree, 1/3 are withholding judgement until later, and a small amount disagree completely. So instead, here's something I think we can disagree on: "the source of Shallan's Shardblade." Unlike with Helaran's Plate and Blade, I'm not sure it came from the Ghostbloods at all. I think its history of how it ended up with her is much more complicated. Her father almost certainly had it before her, but there's also evidence that it was the murder weapon she used on him. There's probably a few better threads we could use for that discussion than this one. Gloom: Yes, I admit Helaran could be alive, and it could have been some completely unrelated character that Kaladin killed, but I'm betting against it, heavily. And come on, it's not "a field of little consequence", it's the set up for almost the entirety of Kaladin's character.

One minor thing you seem to have forgotten: Helaran knew more than the advisors. The speculation on my part is that he knew more because he was next in line, and that to some degree he was being groomed to follow after his father, and allied with the Ghostbloods for the sake of his family (his siblings), regardless of his personal feelings on his father's plans. Shardlet's speculation is that the Ghostbloods killed off Helaran outright, which works, but which I'm not fond of. It's more useful to forge a link between Shallan, Amaram, and Kaladin by using Helaran than some random Veden. Like this, we will have Amaram being immediately suspicious and distrustful of Shallan when he meets her on the Shattered Plains. (From the forum Q&A: Amaram found out the identity of the Shardbearer.) And it's something to spring on Shallan when she starts trusting and working with the Kholinars, Kaladin, and the Bridge 4 crew. Not that she has any room to be critical of others when it comes to killing people in her family...

I can just imagine the characters making a tally after the events of Nightblood. Vash:"Here's the 14 Awakened swords Yesteel made before we stopped him." Vivi:"Don't you mean 15?" Vash:"..." Vivi:"..." Vash:"That white-haired guard that was keeping an eye on them, did he seem at all suspicious to you?" Nightblood: I spoke to him, he said he just needed to borrow it. Indefinitely.

WOOHOOO!!!! Can't believe he gave us that one. I'm giving myself another imaginary point.

No credit for me? I feel down. I'd say my major point of disagreement is this: It would feel hokey to me if it was something added after the fact, as it is in your Star Wars example (that didn't actually happen did it? checking... No, thankfully), but as long as it was planned from the beginning, it should flow naturally. True, there's no reason the random unnamed Veden has to be Helaran, but I think that interconnectedness between heretofore unassociated major characters would be interesting. Also, it didn't really matter in the conflict whether Amaram's forces were winning or not at the time the Shardbearer entered the fray. The advantage of the Shardbearer is that he could easily penetrate the enemy lines, since they'd already been spread out at that point in the battle. The only real threat to a Shardbearer in a fight like that is getting bogged down in massive numbers. Also, I don't think the Plate and Blade belonged to House Davar, like the Soulcaster, they were strictly loaners from the Ghostbloods.

Is anyone else curious about Hoid went about sending this letter? I haven't seen that discussed at all. I doubt he could have used a courier or a traveling merchant. Maybe he put it in a bottle and tossed it in the general direction of Yolen in Shadesmar? Or he could have sent it to the guys chasing him with a note that said "For your boss."

He could definitely collect more Shards, and I imagine they would start to intermingle eventually as well. Also, picking up a Shard influences the holder's psyche, which is part of the reason Odium doesn't pick up Shards after he kills the holder, he likes being pure Hatred. Sazed isn't as heavily affected by this, since Ruin and Preservation mostly counter each other out, but I believe Sazed has gained a tendency to do things in balance. Try reading through most of these from the site Windrunner linked to, they should answer most of your questions.

It was in the forum Q&A: On a related note, it looks like back in May there was a discussion here about whether all the Shards were equal across the 3 Realms, or if some were more powerful in one or the other, but it doesn't look like they made any solid conclusions.

I think that as long as a potential Surgebinder is fulfilling their Primary/Secondary Divine attributes, they can attract a Spren and form a Nahel bond. In Jasnah's case those are most likely Learned and Giving, respectively. The first one should be easy enough for her, and the second might only require her to be a bit charitable at times, or interpreted any number of ways. Even her killing of those muggers could be considered as her giving, since she's doing a service of sorts to the city. Activating the Knights Radiants Ideals #2-5 is probably a bit trickier though. Those require the Surgebinder to confirm to a stricter set of rules and laws. But even then, I doubt every Radiant had to be a saint. Jasnah should have a pretty good intellectual idea of how the 40 unique Ideals of the KR relate to the 40 Parables in Nohadon's Way of Kings, so I'd be a little bit surprised if she's still below level 2, but then again, the Ideals might be more of a spiritual thing.

I think the key word in that statement is "like". The state of an Awakened object depends heavily on the amount of Breath used, the Visualization, and the Command, none of which have to be exactly the same. We don't if they are a bit like Nightblood, or exactly like Nightblood. I'm guessing with only "a bit", no sentience, somehow weaker than Nightblood. Theory: The reason Nightblood became sentient was that his Command ("Destroy evil.") required some degree of sentience to interpret what "evil" is, and even that wasn't enough, since it heavily borrows from the wielder's own impressions.

Dalinar was looking through other people's perspectives with every Highstorm vision he had. The death visions probably operate on a similar mechanic, but less guided by Honor and more latching onto whatever major Cognitive bit is on the rise at that moment. Since Kaladin's leap was a significant event, its ripples were big enough to be part of a death vision. Not that I'm saying that all the death visions are the dying person piggybacking, some seem to be observations directly from the dying, with cryptic otherworldly knowledge tacked on. Hmmm, I wonder if the Cryptics are responsible for imparting that knowledge? It would explain their presence in that one death vision, and possibly the mechanism by which the visions are occuring.

It could be that Kaladin's Nahel bond prevents him from feeling the Thrill. In that case he may have felt it as a child, but as a Surgebinder, his spren protects him from it.

I agree about Yolen being the initial blueprint, but I think Hoid has a significant history that makes him even more adaptable to the magic systems than the average Yolen human. From the forum Q&A: I think their utility stems more from them being the original type of humans than being former Shardholders.

It is notable that the Ars Arcanum author states that there are "ten levels of Voidbindnig", but there's nothing about there being ten levels to Surgebinding.

Woohoo! I guessed correctly (2.5 years ago).: http://twg.17thshard.com/index.php?topic=8063.msg175235#msg175235 But I didn't realize it would be 5 different PoVs. Except here I said "other characters" (implying multiple), so I think he must have said that as well originally. Edit: My guesses for the remaining three are (least likely)Elhokar, Navani, Dalinar, (more likely)Sadeas, Gavilar, and (most likely)Shalash.

I've been thinking lately, with the terminology used to describe Adonalsium (Shattering and Shards) maybe it was the unnatural crystallization of a formerly pervasive force itself. Perhaps its power used to exist with equal distribution throughout the Cosmere, but some people/event caused it to all concentrate to one point, and it was later Shattered. If so, perhaps Hoid's goal isn't just to reassemble it, but also to dissolve it back into its former diluted state, in which it could best counter its opposing force.

It was mentioned on pages 4 and 5 of the thread directly below this one: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/2639-brandons-book-2-reading/page-5 I tried to discuss it, but between the brevity of the quote and my own ninja quality of not being noticed, it didn't take off.

I thought that trick only worked because he was Pushing down from above while being extremely massive. If he'd been Pushing from the side or below while Tapping weight, it would have been a much more minor boost, if any boost at all. Mainly it seems like the Tapping/Filling is only used to decide if he moves or the object(s) that he's Pushing moves.

I've been a huge fan of the Nicrosil misting MC getting spiked with Feruchemical nicrosil, pretty much ever since I got to Alloy of Law Ars Arcanum and found out what Feruchemical nicrosil did. On the main topic, BS said: From what I've seen in the posts about Nicrosil Feruchemy in the Mistborn RPG, there are some well-defined rules about what Nicrosil can and can't do, but there also seems to be a lot of wiggle room and nothing at all about the possible abilities of a Nicrosil Compounder, who might be able to break the rules.

But would other Awakened swords necessarily be type IVs? It might be possible to Awaken stone and metal without instilling sentience. It would just be a very expensive type 3 then.

I speculated on this topic a bit in a WoR subforum thread. With a bit more reasoning in a follow up post. Salient points are: 1. Shardblade interactions with Nightblood/Awakened objects, RAFOed and "You will someday know.", respectively. 2. The epilogue to Words of Radiance will likely have a fight between users of different magic systems. 3. Hoid probably has Breath. Hoid was also the PoV character for the first SA book epilogue, it might become a running theme. 4. If Hoid's sword is an Awakened blade, it looks and behaves differently from Nightblood. I don't think is that strange, since Yesteel probably has used a different Visualization, Command, and amount of Breaths. It might not even have sentience. I think Nightblood really belongs with Vasher, or if he dies or something, then with Vivenna. Since Brandon tends to keep most Cosmere books self-contained, it would be odd if Nightblood (the book) ended with Nightblood disappearing under mysterious circumstances with Hoid, who's had relatively little interaction with the Nalthis characters. But any similar Awakened swords Yesteel makes should be fair game for Hoid. Also, the Stormlight Archive takes place after Warbreaker, and since Nightblood is expected to take place shortly after Warbreaker, it's reasonable to guess that SA takes place after it as well. And if Yesteel is making swords like Nightblood, what better souvenir is there for Hoid to take home with him after he makes his mandated appearance in Nightblood? It could be the fairly nondescript sword that he's carrying around in WoK.