BlackYeti

Has anyone considered the possibility of any of the objects in Mraize's collection being Dragonsteel?

Off the top of my head, he's got a pair of hairpins and a silver knife (silver could refer to the colour rather than the type of metal) which could be potential candidates.

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

@Blacksmithki fair warning, I don't blame you for reading this if you do (I have, because it's something Brandon wrote), but Brandon has actually suggested that people don't read these, as he's worried that it will falsely effect their perception of Hoid (I'm not sure how exactly). 

An excellent point that I should have mentioned. Thank you for making it for me.

Allow me to further emphasise it by pointing out that they are definitely not canon. In fact, Brandon's suggested that when he goes back to rewrite The Liar of Partinel, he will do so from a first-person perspective. So basically, you can't trust anything you read in it.

4 minutes ago, IllNsickly said:

@Blacksmithki

Also becasue this is the Cosmere and 16 is the most perfectly magical number here.

I take it that this was directed at me, rather than Blacksmithki?

I'll grant you that 16 is a number of special significance in the Cosmere, however, that doesn't mean that Brandon's planning on organising his books around that number. You're stretching things greatly to get that to work, and as it's currently planned, it still doesn't really work even then.

Just now, Blacksmithki said:

@BlackYeti the liar of partinel? the lightweaver of rens? I haven't heard of either of those.

They're a duology, set on Yolen, that tell Hoid's origin story (note that Hoid is called Midius in this one, there is another character called Hoid though which is where Hoid/Midius got the name from) and which lead into Dragonsteel. After finishing Mistborn Era 1, Brandon had a four book contract for the Warbreaker duology alternating with this duology. He'd partly written The Liar of Partinel (and wasn't very happy with it) when he had to abandon it because of The Wheel of Time, I believe.

If you're interested, you can find sample chapters for The Liar of Partinel here.

6 hours ago, IllNsickly said:

Cosmere, not Stormlight.

I am in for the long haul.

 

Additionally, I have the Mistborn Trilogy as one volume, The Alloy saga as one Volume. You can see where my perception is skewed.

I still don't see how you end up with 16 though. By collecting books together into volumes like that, I'm not able to come up with more than 15 volumes, and that's after introducing some artificial divides into them e.g. separating The Liar of Partinel out from Dragonsteel. And of course, if we don't collect them together like that, we instead end up with far more than 16.

1. The Liar of Partinel & The Lightweaver of Rens
2. Dragonsteel & Sequels
3. White Sand & Sequels
4. Elantris & Sequels
5. Warbreaker & Nightblood
6. Stormlight Arc 1
7. Stormlight Arc 2
8. The Aether of Night
9. Dark One
10. Untitled Threnody Novel
11. Mistborn Era 1
12. Mistborn Era 2
13. Mistborn Era 3
14. Mistborn Era 4
15. Collected shorter fiction

32 minutes ago, Overstorm said:

What's interesting it's how partial Lashings downward would work: turns out they won't do anything and the normal pull downward would remain. This is true for any partial Lashing down up to one full Basic Lashing down.
Now, we have instances of Szeth Lashing himself down to restore normal gravity to himself - perhaps if the downward Lashing (less or equal to one) is the only one affecting you then simply gravity reclaims its grip on you.

I sort of disagree here (though in a sense it comes down to semantics). I think that, in terms of the magic, everything has a default single lashing towards the centre of the gravity well. The first lashing that a Windrunner does changes the vector of that default lashing only unless it's placed on top of that default lashing, in which case the new lashing is effectively a second lashing. Which means that the Windrunner always has at least one lashings worth of force acting on them, unless they make the forces cancel in some way, e.g. half up, and half down. So when Szeth lashes himself downwards, he's really just restoring that default single lashing.

8 hours ago, robardin said:

So Kaladin is just pretending not to be able to see/hear the yellow Voidspren, right? The ending to Chapter 15 being from his POV certainly suggests he heard it give the alert about him being in the bushes.

I don't think so. Spren are sometimes visible and sometimes invisible, for example, while Syl is usually invisible to everyone but Kaladin, she can make herself visible to someone else if she chooses. How visible they are, however, clearly depends on the type of spren, since Pattern is visible to everyone all the time. The listeners can apparently see all spren even when they're invisible to everyone else.

So while Kaladin clearly saw/heard the Voidspren that night, there has been no indication that he has done since, which to me implies that the spren is usually invisible to him.

8 hours ago, robardin said:

So the reawakened parshmen can sense/hear the distant rhythms of other Listeners, but they don't know what it means. More tellingly, they don't do the Rhythms among themselves - suggesting that other "reborn" parshmen don't, either. Conclusion: some of the original "Parshendi" survived and are out there singing the Music of the Void.

I think you're working off of a false assumption here. I don't think that when the listeners hear the Rhythms, they are hearing other listeners. Rather, I think that the Rhythms exist externally to the listeners, and the listeners are singing along to the Rhythms. 

Brandon clearly implies this here:

Quote

Q: Hypothetically, if all of the Listeners were to go extinct would the Rhythms still exist?

A: Yes.

Q: Are there any other species in the cosmere that also interact with the Rhythms like the listeners do? (Though not necessarily in the same way?)

A: Yes.

And here he indicates a way that a non-listener could interact with the rhythms:

Quote

AETHENOTH

Can an allomantic bronze burner hear the rhythms on Roshar?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, this is possible.

I think this should demonstrate that the Rhythms are not a listener "hive-mind", and thus the fact that these listeners can hear the rhythms does not mean in and of itself that there must be survivors from the original "Parshendi" as you put it.

5 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Nope. Copy the first murder and keep the chain going. Adolin knows it originates from his actions. Make it look coincidental and mysterious, pressure Adolin into a confession. Keep murdering people in the way Sadeas died and you draw attention to yourself. Everyone knows, that Ialai is a snake, but by making it look coincidental and mysterious, she can keep the attention from herself and keep playing the grieving wife.

How would Adolin know that it originates from his actions? It was done in such a way that it's likely that he wouldn't ever find out about it, and if he did, he'd likely be as confused about it as we are.

26 minutes ago, Argent said:

YESSS! The meme, it only grows more powerful! Feed it, feed it more!

Your wish is my command! 

1 minute ago, Toaster Retribution said:

*I seem to be the only one on the 17th Shard who finds Kaladins story arc the least interesting. Not that it is bad or anything, but I just find that all the interesting things, with Evi, Ghostbloods, murders and other nations happens at other places. That said, the moral dilemma in Kaladins situation is interesting.

No, you're not, I also find it the least interesting at the moment. It was great to start off with since it was resolving that plotline which we'd been speculating on for the past 3 years, but now that we've had that payoff, I'm definitely more interested in the other plot threads. It doesn't help that Kaladin is far from my favourite character, Brandon needs to bring back Jasnah soon!

Now that Mraize's finally made an appearance, I'm left wondering where Iyatil's hiding. She's had more than enough time to get to Urithiru after her attempt to assassinate Amaram failed, and we know how good she is at concealing herself.

30 minutes ago, Pattern said:

Ialai and Mraize - How could we have forgotten to speculate about that?

More later...

How in the name of Harmony's Lost Unmentionables did you manage to get to that point so quickly!?

I only just got there now, and I started reading from the moment that the chapters were released, and I skipped the first one since I'd read the Thrill already. You wouldn't happen to be a Sparker would you?

I'm not sure I understand your question.

Urithiru has always been in the middle of the continent, the Oathgate didn't move it anywhere. The Oathgate moved the Alethi army from Narak to Urithiru. 

The Voidbringers summon the Everstorm at the Shattered Plains as you say. The Shattered Plains are to the East of Urithiru. The Everstorm moves in an easterly direction, away from Urithiru,  towards the Ocean. It then circles the planet to arrive back at the continent at Shinovar. 

Why do you think that it would hit Urithiru before Shinovar? 

2 hours ago, Mulk said:

 

as I recall it, Shallan had Renarin cut a hole into the crem covered dome at Stormseat to get inside where the mechanism was, and that the working of the mechanism moved the doorway so it was in a different spot so Adolin cut his way out of it again.  As there seems to be little to no crem up in Urithiru as it appears to be above the storms, I'd say the crem-covered dome was indeed transported.

There is crem at Urithiru: Dalinar could only open the trapdoor at the top of the tower by slicing through the crem with his Shardblade. There may not be as much crem up there as there is at the Shattered Plains, but if there's enough to form an obstruction at the top (which could be as much as a kilometre higher than the Oathgate platforms), then it seems likely that the Oathgate doorways could have been encased in crem, if not as much as at the Stormseat Oathgate.

Brandon recently tweeted an image containing a new map of Roshar that pinpoints the location of Thaylen City (I've put the image in the spoiler box at the bottom of this post so it doesn't take up too much space). I've updated my above graphic to include this new info (and to incorportate @Pagerunner's above suggestion of limiting the Aimian Oathgate to the islands).

Edit: Having had a chance to study the new map a bit more, I now notice that it also gives the exact location of Urithiru, so I'm replacing the graphic with one showing showing the precise location of the Urithiru Oathgate pairs (in blue instead of red).

3 hours ago, Stark said:

Different topic! @Mistbornwithakitty - The Name of SHSHSHSHSHSH.  I don't know if you read the collection of Dalinar flashbacks titled The Thrill that were released as a short story in that collection last year?  If not, spoilers below.

  Hide contents

I am pretty sure the next flashback we get will be when Dalinar meets Evi, and she is named.  My biggest confusion from reading those was why Dalinar could see her and hear her name in the flashbacks.  Now we know, its coming back in the present.  My thoughts are that the flashback reveal will be to do with the other gaps in his memory, like why his ardent buddy stopped being a soldier.

 

Dalinar can remember his wife's name in the flashbacks because he hasn't yet visited the Nightwatcher. Keep in mind, the flashbacks are not the characters remembering their past. They are the result of Brandon telling the story nonsequentially, so therefore he can embed details in them that the characters wouldn't remember in the main narrative. This is also why he is able to have flashbacks for dead characters if necessary.

1 hour ago, eveorjoy said:

I don't want to wait until the end of Oathbringer to read about Vivanne or Jasnah. 

Vivanne? Did you perhaps mean Vivenna? 

I just don't want Brandon to kill Jasnah, again... I don't think I could take it a second time. 

2 hours ago, Fulminato said:

the oathgate are tied to the silver kingdoms (https://coppermind.net/wiki/Silver_Kingdoms).

alethela and valhav are quite different from alethkar and jah keved, i suppose jasnah is wrong and the oathgate of rishir will be in the north coast (and it will fill the gap). we know most of the 'soldier' of the silver kingdoms are in alethela, it will make possibile a quick response if anytihing happen inside them.

Why do you think that Jasnah will be wrong? I would have thought that the map of the Silver Kingdoms is good evidence that she is correct.

See my earlier post about this for a more detailed explanation:

29 minutes ago, jofwu said:

Yeah. Sure, a semi-circle isn't a full ring. But I think with the semi-circle you can properly say that they "ring the field". The full circle out in front of the tower doesn't "ring the field". It's a ring in the middle of the field.

Is there anything that would contradict a compromise? What if the platforms form MOST of a circle, with Urithiru taking bite out of one side? Allow me to display my incredible MS Paint skills. Something like this, though I think it feels best if all the platforms are all visible from one another (i.e. not obstructed by the tower).

I really like this. It's probably the best proposal for their positioning so far.

The problem I've had with the semicircle idea is that, in one of the descriptions of Urithiru that I quoted in my last post, it clearly states that "The edges of the lower levels melded into the mountains to either side", which would mean that the field with the Oathgates in cannot extend to the cliff behind Urithiru. Therefore, the Oathgates could not form a complete semicircle, at most, it could form a minor arc.

And as you point out, a circle in the middle of a field can't really be said to ring the field.

• Jasnah returning.
• Szeth going to Shinovar to Destroy Evil.
• Meeting Glys.
• Meeting the Nightwatcher
• Dalinar exploring his new powers.
• The introduction of a Radiant from an Order we've not seen yet.
• Kelsier stealing Lift's dinner to remind everyone who the Cosmere's true master thief is. 

2 hours ago, jofwu said:

It's described as if it were cut with a shardblade, so I don't think that fits. And seems like "semi-circle" is explicitly mentioned. Need to look at the quotes again though.

Isn't the tower on the edge of a cliff? For some reason I thought the sheer side was on the edge of a cliff, so the oathgates wouldn't be able to ring it completely. Maybe I imagined that. Either way, @ccstat, I don't see a problem saying that they make a half-circle "ring" around the field, with the tower at the base of the semi-circle. The tiers are described as things and they don't go all the way around after all.

Here's the quote regarding the shape:

Quote

The tiers of the city, despite looking circular from the front, were actually more half-circles, with the flat sides facing east. The edges of the lower levels melded into the mountains to either side, but the very center was open to the east. The rooms up against that flat side had windows there, providing a view toward the Origin.

Oathbringer - Chapter 4, Oaths

And regarding it being on the edge of a cliff, there's a couple of things to support that:

Quote

He sat on that edge, right at the top, feet swinging over a drop of a hundred massive stories and a plummet down the mountainside below. Glass sparkled on the smooth surface of the flat side there.

Words of Radiance - I-10, Szeth

Quote

Dalinar walked through his chambers in Urithiru, pulled by the unnatural storm. Bare feet on cold rock. He passed Navani—who sat at the writing desk working on her memoirs again—and stepped onto his balcony, which hung straight out over the cliffs beneath Urithiru.

Oathbringer - Chapter 4, Oaths

7 minutes ago, Aleksiel said:

It's not a bad cover, however if I knew nothing I would have expected the book to be about the woman on the cover seeking vengeance, which could make for a pretty cool story, but is far from the actual novel.

To be fair, this is book 3, so if you don't know anything about it, you shouldn't really be reading it. 

Of course that does bring into question the quality of the Way of Kings' cover... I quite like the new one (the one at the top of my last post), however the original one (the post before that one) is, in my opinion at least, rather uninspired.

4 minutes ago, Blacksmithki said:

I can't think of any examples of common non-sentient Spren being invisible so it's more likely then not that windspren are visible, and so I support the statement about occhams razor, most of the time the simplest of all equal solutions is correct.

Quote

Maybe they hadn’t seen the spren. Many of the larger ones were invisible except to the person they were tormenting. Kaladin sat back down to floor of the wagon, hanging his legs outside. The windspren had said his name, but undoubtedly she’d just repeated what she’d heard before. But … none of the men in the cage knew his name.

The Way of Kings - Chapter 2, Honor is Dead

Apparently windspren often are invisible, at least according to Kaladin.

11 hours ago, Mulk said:

Urithiru could be anywhere from 15,000 years old (assuming 100 year lags between Desolations, which is as short as I dare make it) or as long as...perhaps 105,000 years old, if there is a 1,000 year lag between Desolations.

Even your smaller number is a massive overestimate. 

Quote

SHAWN M. HALVERSON (HTTPS://WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/270545169744383/PERMALINK/731811053617790/)

So I just got back from the book signing Brandon held today, I asked him about the time between each of the original 99 desolations.

BRANDON SANDERSON

It turns out that the number 99 in the stories was made up, and that there were much fewer of them. He also then stated that the cosmere runs along a 10,000 year gap and that Roshar falls right into the middle of the timeline. He ended with "That should give you a perspective of the timeline and events of the desolations". I figured that if anyone wanted to know a bit more of Roshar's history they might find this interesting.

 

source

So the time period from the Shattering to Mistborn Era 4 is 10,000 years.

The time from Aharietiam to The Way of Kings is ~5,000 years (4,500 years * 1.1 = 4,950 years). We know that the Stormlight Archive is currently running almost concurrently with Mistborn Era 2. 

Mistborn Era 2 is set ~300 years after Era 1. Era 3 is an unknown, but it's a much shorter period after Era 2. Let's assume 400 years between Era 1 and Era 3, and similar separation between Era 3 and Era 4. That puts Era 4 ~500 years after The Way of Kings.
Therefore the time from Aharietiam is ~5,500 years, and the time from the Shattering to Aharietiam is ~4,500 years.

From the Shattering we have to allow some time for humanity to find their way to the Tranquiline Halls and get settled in, then for Honour and Cultivation to arrive on Roshar. During which time Odium is taking out Devotion, Dominion, and Ambition. Let's say this period lasts for 500 years (probably an underestimate).

Then Odium shows up and drives humanity onto Roshar, and the Oathpact is formed.The Radiants have not yet been formed, so Urithiru probably doesn't exist yet, but let's say that Pailiah had a premonition that it would be needed (or something like that), and the Heralds built it right away.

This would mean that Urithiru is currently, at most, 9,000 years old. And it is probably a lot younger than that. I'll grant you that still makes it unbelievably ancient, but not in the tens (and certainly not in the hundreds) of millennia as you suggest.

@The Invested Beard, there's actually a few other similar covers in circulation as well.

3 minutes ago, Isaiah Zayth said:

Love Jasnah, hate the depiction of her on this cover (if that is indeed her). Love the depiction of her on the US cover. Also: just love Jasnah in general.

Well, it likely isn't anyone specific actually. According to @PeterAhlstrom, the UK covers are not meant to be a literal depiction of characters or events, rather,they are intended to set the mood of the book.