Shardlet

WWI is an interesting case. It became a world war because of the network of diplomatic treaties an alliances that were in place. It was essentially a war of diplomatic necessity. Everyone held their treaties and alliance as weightier than the presumed costs (not just financial) of war. Although, had they known what that war would turn out to be like, I suspect that more than a few countries would have said thanks, but no thanks. You are absolutely right Natans. While the War of Reckoning was expected in its origin, it is vastly different in its current form. The only people who apparently care about what the war is actually about are Dalinar and to a lesser degree Elhokar. The other highprinces pay the vengeance pact lip service as a means of enriching themselves by winning gemhearts. I am anxious to see how the other highprinces will react to the changes Dalinar intends to implement. I expect the more successful highprinces (like Sadeas) will be furious as they see their incomes decrease. In contrast, I expect that some of the less successful highprinces (particularly those geographically close to Sadeas) will be pleased because they will now have greater opportunity for income.

Totally agree Kier. Although, I picture the collar being a little higher than what you describe.

Qdoba Mexican Grill. Loving me those burritos!

Upvote for your discipleship and the plug.

I agree with dionysus. Most of the cases you pointed out Moogle, while frustrating to us as readers, are natural responses to the circumstances of the characters. There is no way, if I were in Kaladin's place, I'd be talking about it with anyone, other than Teft really, until I understood a lot more about it from Syl at least. There is not a country on Earth that wouldn't have declared War on the Parshendi in response to the assassination and how the Parshendi admitted to and handled their response to it, assuming of course the capacity to carry out such a war (without allies, Belgium would not be likely to declare war on the USA for such an action). Shardblades are dicey business particularly in the hand of a woman, and Shallan is only just beginning to develop trust in Jasnah. Taravangian is, however, one who is overly-cagey for no apparent good reason, but we've only talked to him for a couple of chapters. The highstorm visions, that we've seen so far, are vague. But, judging by the Purelake vision, there is more that we don't have yet. I suspect much more. I think we have only seen a sampling of the visions (I'd guess 25-33%). The first book in a 10 book series should introduce several key characters, provide sufficient info to get a feel for the world, establish some basis of conflict for the book itself as well as the entire series, and build tension. WoK does all these things and does it well. If everyone was open and sharing with all their information the story would be limp, cumbersome to read (because the info dump would not be interesting or valued until the reader is well situated with the characters, the world, and the story). Now if these same secrets are still being kept in book 4, then that is a different situation all together. Then there is lack of progress and development of the characters and the story. But, we only have book 1 so far and I don't see many irrational secrets being kept (by either the characters or the author).

In AoL in the first Wax and Wayne scene, Wax thinks about aluminum bullets. He muses that only a few alloys are allomantically inert and that none of those has stable ballistics (i.e., good properties for bullets). So, to Wax's previous knowledge there was no known aluminum alloy which was allomantically inert and could be used to make reliably functional bullets. That is why this new alloy is so special.

Welcome, Alex. An exciting time to join up with the new chapters on Tor. One little tidbit on the Heralds that Brandon gave us is that all of the Heralds were mentioned or seen in WoK. That makes for a lot of cameos. In any case, glad to have you with us.

There is nothing establishing that it is a voidbinding chart. It is simply common belief.

Safe hand is a Vorin thing and the darkeyes are clearly more practical about things (like food, gloves, etc.). Lift is not from a Vorin kingdom and therefore would not wear a glove or conceal her left hand.

Who unequivocally confessed to responsibility. They even remained and surrendered to cover the retreat of the other Parshendi. They clearly knew it was going to happen, they said they did it. They just refused to tell why. Torture would have been a better course, Moogle?

The ground is broken under his right foot as well. His left foot is somewhat obscured by the dust/stormlight?.

It was mentioned that she was doing a lot of running of things back in Alethkar in Elhokar's absence.

Actually it says that would would not say anything more even as they were hanged. This suggests to me that they did in fact question them prior to hanging them. How long did you want them to take? It seems clear that they were not hanged that night since Dalinar was in no shape to dispatch cavalry to pursue the Parshendi. The last bit sounds like a recounting of the events of the next several days.

Canon or not, my personal opinion is that it looks lame. But, since it appears to be canon by your description, it is right.

Yeah, even held vertically, a one-handed flute would have a very different set of notes to work with. Something like a pentatonic scale or similar.

Whoosh! The prologue is incredible! So much about Jasnah is so recent. No reasons for the assassination, but definite acknowledgement on the part of the Parshendi. Jasnah should be able to recognize Szeth on sight. And the Parshendi destroyed hundreds of horses and riders which pursued them. Edit: Oh, and how does one play the flute one handed?

The lame collar is still there on the uniform, but Kaladin is much much much better. The cracks propagating from Kaladin's glowing fist are also interesting. Looks like he just landed with a substantial amount of energy. The ground is cracked under his foot as well.

I was speaking to pretty much everyone between my comments that seemed to indicate that the dragon being on Yolen was canon. I got the impression that the Shattered Plains was a significant setting and feature of the story (much as it is in WoK). However, I doubt that much of the characters and events of Dragonsteel that were set in the plains or revolved around the plains were brought into WoK. Since, a key setting and feature for some of these things has been extracted from Dragonsteel, I would expect there to be a substantial rewrite of many characters and their actions. And, since WoK is vastly different from WoK Prime (i.e., a substantial rewrite), I would not count on the final published Dragonsteel being particularly close in details to Brandon's thesis Dragonsteel. That is not to say that it won't be; just that I would not rely on it to be.

That is lovely and all. Yes there is much of Dragonsteel that is canon and there are parts that are not. Can you honestly say that you know which parts are and which aren't. I very much doubt it. My only purpose in making the distinction is so that we don't lock our minds into a particular way of thinking that may very well turn out to be incorrect. Fact is, Brandon hasn't written Dragonsteel as it will be. Things change from draft to draft. How much more so may things change on a full rewrite? I agree that, as it currently stands, the dragon to whom the letter is written to you is/was on Yolen. But until it is published or we have direct WoB on the issue, can we say with any certainty that it is canon?

Hi, RadiantNights. Welcome to our corner of the internet. Some good thinking here. Many of my thoughts concerning you theories have been already presented by others. But, I think there is a couple of places I can offer some tidbits. 2. Even so, I doubt it would be something that Shallan would be feeling ready to do. And, if I were Renarin, I would prefer my more experienced cousin to do the task rather than someone fairly new to the game. 3. We have no word on whether there are spren in Shinovar or not. Rysn comments on not seeing spren. But this seems to me to be in response the the verdant greenery around her. Such greenery is common elsewhere only after rains come when everything 'blooms' as it were (a time of great life activity). In contrast, it is always like that in Shinovar. Spren seem to more likely to manifest in response to change. If so, then one would not expect to see as many spren in Shinovar where the plant life is much less dynamic. 5. A key piece of the Geranid interlude is that the spren on froze in size when an actual measurement was recorded. None of the incorrect numbers had an effect. Similarly, I would suppose you could not lock a spren's nature or actions in place by naming or recording unless they first exhibited that behavior. 6. If you are interested in reading material from WoR the click here. Or click here specifically for the Eshonai POV. 7. It is unclear how related the War of Reckoning is the desolation.

It is not that they cannot directly attack each other, but rather that the couldn't touch each other. In HoA, it was painful for Vin to come in contact with Ruin. However, to kill Ati, she simply grabbed onto him and held on in spite of the pain until they were both killed. That only worked because the diametric opposition of Ruin and Preservation. Such would not be the case with the other shards. As to a direct fight, I think it is pretty well established that the shards are all roughly equal to one another in power. So it would likely be down to the cleverness and strategies of each of the people holding the shards. That gets risky in a one-on-one fight. Without direct experience, how can you reasonably be assured of defeating your opponent? Best to play things out in a less risky manner. So in my view, it is not so much that they can't attack each other directly, but more that it is they won't unless they have a strong reason to suspect they will be the victor.

Yes, this is semantics to degree, I know, but the liquid essence of Preservation was in the Well (like the water is in your glass). Your glass however, does not contain the book that it is next to. Similarly, the Well did not contain the black smoke which was a part of Ruin which was essentially in the next room over.

At the Well, but not part of it.

Welcome Aryanath. Glad to have you with us. It is unclear how many cycles had occurred. There were at least two (pre-Rashek and during the reign of the Lord Ruler or TLR). TLR was obviously not big on sharing information. It is clear that some knowledge was out there about the Well and Ruin's prison. Kwaan's message imploring that the "thing that is imprisoned there must not be released" demonstrates that much at least. Add to that, Ruin had been manipulating information to expedite his release. So, some information was out there and handed down till TLR's time and some residual info was left by TLR. But we don't know how many cycles occurred.

Depends on the OS and the desired use. For normal clunking around and gaming I would say PC (though Windows 8 can go hang itself). For graphics design and a number of other uses, Macs are nice.