Frosted Flakes Posted February 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2015 One question, why are you putting the new stuff in old posts? Why not just put it in a new one (since you are putting links to each entry in the OP). It's kind of frustrating having to search for the new stuff. And it puts the discussion out of order (i.e. Chapter 8 has now been inserted in the middle of the Chapter 7 discussion). ...I wish you had brought this up sooner, because the thought just never entered my mind. Going forward from here, I will do things the sensible way >.< 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosted Flakes Posted February 23, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2015 Chapter Nine: Damnation "Ten people, with Shardblades alight, standing before a wall of black and white and red." (There's a surprising amount of things going on here. Firstly, it mentions ten people. The number ten is significant in that it's the number of Heralds and the number of Orders of the Knights Radiant. In this instance, it could refer to either the Heralds or the leader of each Order of Knights Radiant, but I'm leaning towards the Heralds. It mentions Shardblades being "alight." This can either mean Spren/Radiantblades (is there a canon term for this?) or possibly Honorblades, which I imagine would glow like Radiantblades do when wielded by a Herald, though that's purely conjecture. Black and white and red are colors associated with the Listeners and Voidbringers. Out of all the bridge crews, Bridge Four had the highest casualty rate. (Obviously one bridge crew will statistically have higher casualties than the other, but the following text makes it sound like Bridge Four has a noticeably higher rate than the other bridges. I can't think of a logical reason for this. If Sadeas has been doing bridge runs for years, and each plateau assault is different, and the bridges are on a rotation, as well as all the other random factors, then shouldn't all the bridges be extremely close statistically?) [Kaladin] still didn't know why they fought on those blustering plateaus. (As far as I know, this is the first and possibly only time someone other than a Thaylen uses the word blustering.) Bridgemen who took that path never returned. (This is in reference to the Honor Chasm. Kaladin is the only one who ever had a change of heart? Weird.) "You used to be vibrant," Syl said. "So many looked up to you, Kaladin. Your squad of soldiers. The enemies you fought. The other slaves. Even some lighteyes." (Kaladin's reputation and status pre-slavery really isn't explored very much. His enemies looked up to him? And lighteyes? It seems strange. I would expect that his enemies would respect his skill as an enemy, but looking up to him seems odd. Same with lighteyes. I imagine they would be pleased with his dedication to soldiering, but looking up to him seems strange. Anyway, it seems like being a role model is part of what attracted Syl to Kaladin. Seems important. There could be a really low key kind of guy out there, somewhere, who protects way more people than Kaladin, but - oh my god I just had a thought mid comment. Perhaps, in order to initial attract spren, a person must be perceived to have the values a spren would be attracted to so that perception would carry over to the Cognitive Realm. In fact, that also explains squires. A group of people who idolize and respect and perceive a Radiant a certain way will have, if I understand Realmatics correctly, an influence on that Radiants cognitive existence. Maybe squires aren't just a useful byproduct of the Nahel bond, what if they're an essential part of making it stronger?) Refuse to charge the Parshendi, try to lag behind the other bridges, and you'd be beheaded. They reserved that fate for that specific crime, in fact. (Is there some cultural taboo against being beheaded? Why is that any worse than being hanged?) A tall, yellow-and-black-haired soldier stood at the edge of the bridge grounds, a group of miserable men huddled behind him. That was Laresh, one of the soldiers who worked the duty tent. He brought new bridgemen to replace those who'd been killed. (Laresh got a lot of description for being such an insignificant character. Why not just say, "A solider delivering new bridgemen called for Gaz' attention." Could it be? Laresh is a worldhopper. Sorry...sorry...I just...I see worldhoppers everywhere.) The storm continued its tirade. And for the first time in a year, Kaladin found himself crying. (This seems important. Does is signify that Kaladin is starting to care again? I think I heard somewhere that Kaladin suffers from seasonal depression or something, but all I can think about are broken souls and the Nahel bond. Maybe I'm looking at this stuff too closely...) [back to Table of Contents] 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleksiel Posted February 23, 2015 Report Share Posted February 23, 2015 Refuse to charge the Parshendi, try to lag behind the other bridges, and you'd be beheaded. They reserved that fate for that specific crime, in fact. (Is there some cultural taboo against being beheaded? Why is that any worse than being hanged?) Beheading is the typical death sentence, I don't think hanging has been mentioned in SA as punishment. So it's not that it's taboo to behead, the phrasing just emphasizes the only thing a bridgeman could do to be sentenced to death is to refuse to do what he's supposed to. Shallan jokes 'fondness for beheadings' comes with being a royalty in WoR. The storm continued its tirade. And for the first time in a year, Kaladin found himself crying. (This seems important. Does is signify that Kaladin is starting to care again? I think I heard somewhere that Kaladin suffers from seasonal depression or something, but all I can think about are broken souls and the Nahel bond. Maybe I'm looking at this stuff too closely...) Hm, that's not what I thought of when I read the scene. In my mind it's Kal's (next to) final breaking point. Remembering Tien's death was the only other time Kal cried on-screen; I don't think we've seen him cry after that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccstat he/him Posted February 24, 2015 Report Share Posted February 24, 2015 "You used to be vibrant," Syl said. "So many looked up to you, Kaladin. Your squad of soldiers. The enemies you fought. The other slaves. Even some lighteyes." oh my god I just had a thought mid comment. Perhaps, in order to initial attract spren, a person must be perceived to have the values a spren would be attracted to so that perception would carry over to the Cognitive Realm. In fact, that also explains squires. A group of people who idolize and respect and perceive a Radiant a certain way will have, if I understand Realmatics correctly, an influence on that Radiants cognitive existence. Maybe squires aren't just a useful byproduct of the Nahel bond, what if they're an essential part of making it stronger?I really like this idea (at least the first half about the role of perception). I'm not completely convinced, because Shallan's facility with obfuscation was very much internal, and hidden even from her own perception. I'm also not sold on the idea of squires strengthening the radiant bond. It's an intriguing idea, though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosted Flakes Posted February 27, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2015 Chapter Ten: Stories of Surgeons [Kaladin] had always preferred Kal to his full name, Kaladin. The shorter name made him fit in better. Kaladin sounded like a lighteye's name.] At ten years old, Kaladin is already disillusioned with lighteyes. Still, I wonder if there is truth to his opinion here and I also agree with it. It'd be interesting to do a study on Stormlight Archive characters names. [Lirin] wore his spectacles, which he called the most precious gift he'd ever been given.] Now that I think of it, Renarin is the only other character I can think of that wears glasses. I can't even imagine how difficult it must be to determine someone's prescription and grind lenses by hand - they truly must be extraordinarily expensive things. [Kaladin and Lirin have a discussion about the importance of washing your hands; that it keeps rotspren and deathspren away. They talk about this wisdom of the Heralds. How the Radiants were not demons, just men who ''had too much power and not enough sense'' and how they betrayed man.] This whole back and forth takes up nearly a page and is a tad bit too long to transcribe verbatim. I encourage you to read it for yourself. Kaladin got the idea that Radiants were demons from an ardent. That's interesting in itself. "I know about Jam's father," Lirin said. "I've had to operate on that lame leg of his three times now. A gift of his glorious time as a soldier." I used to be an adventurer like Jam's father, but then I took an arrow in the...oh, god, I'm sorry. I can't even finish the thought. [Lirin to Kaladin] "Our grandfathers bought and worked us to the second nahn so that we could have full citizenship and the right of travel. Don't waste that on killing." Okay, I had completely forgotten about this. The right of travel? Does that mean lower darkeyes aren't allowed to leave their princedom? Or their country? How does one enforce the right of travel? Do they have passports? I'd love to know more. [back to Table of Contents] Sorry for the break. We've been having some pretty bad winter conditions here in North Carolina, and it's been forcing my wife to work from home...which means no computer for me. I might do chapter 11 tonight before work, too, since chapter 10 was pretty short and there wasn't too much to it. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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