Well, hello there! You’re here? It must be Thursday again, then. Well, what a deal—we’ve got a new chapter to reread together! This one is all about Kaladin being surprised by a bunch of soldiers and their leader, so let’s get on in there and see what took him off guard.
Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. This week we’ll be meeting a certain worldhopper from Nalthis, so of course we’ll talk about her all through the discussion. If you haven’t read Warbreaker and ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Kaladin
WHERE: Kholinar—Wall Guard barracks
WHEN: 1174.1.10.5 (immediately following Chapter 69)
Kaladin takes the Wall Guard up on their offer of a free meal with no strings, and enjoys eating stew with them (though it’s not as good as Rock’s, and they’re all lighteyes to boot). He talks with a handful of soldiers while they eat, stalling in the hopes of meeting this “Highmarshal Azure” person. It works, and he discovers to his shock that the Highmarshal is a woman. She takes him up to the wall to show him the besieging army and gives him a motivational speech, after which he returns to the lighteyes tent at the party and then accompanies the rest of the team back home.
Truth, Love, and Defiance
Title
“Highmarshal Azure” is pretty self-explanatory.
Heralds
Chana is our only Herald this week. She is associated with the role of Guard, the Order of Dustbringers, and the divine attributes Brave and Obedient. Considering that this chapter is all Kaladin hanging out with the Wall Guard, the choice is fairly obvious. When you think about his conversation with Azure, it’s even more obvious.
Icon
Banner and Spears for another Kaladin chapter
Epigraph
Something is happening to the Sibling. I agree this is true, but the division among the Knights Radiant is not to blame. Our perceived worthiness is a separate issue.
—From drawer 1-1, third zircon
AA: This is the third statement from this Elsecaller’s recording, and it’s building an interesting picture. They don’t necessarily read like a continuous statement, but I’ll post it here that way anyway, just to see what we see.
“My research into the cognitive reflections of the spren at the tower has been deeply illustrative. Some thought that the Sibling had withdrawn from men by intent—but I find counter to that theory. The wilting of plants and the general cooling of the air is disagreeable, yes, but some of the tower’s functions remain in place. The increased pressure, for example, persists. Something is happening to the Sibling. I agree this is true, but the division among the Knights Radiant is not to blame. Our perceived worthiness is a separate issue.”
Related to this, our own frequent flyer commenter Austin recently asked Brandon about the proximity of the enslavement of the parsh with the Recreance, and whether said enslavement played a role in the decision. Sanderson’s answer, paraphrased, is that: Update: I’ve replaced my paraphrase with the exact quote as provided by Austin:
AR: How close is the enslavement of the Parshmen to the Recreance, timeline-wise?
BWS: Fairly close, as timeline issues go. But still many decades.
AR: Did it play any kind of factor in the decision?
BWS: Absolutely. Absolutely. But we’re not talking about it happening next year. But it was a factor, how about that?
ETA: That has an interesting effect on the speculation. The epigraphs are decades before the actual Recreance, and we don’t know quite how soon they proceed with the plan to trap Ba-Ado-Mishram. Hmmm. I expect this will shape some of our future discussion of the gemstone archive.
So… the spren seem to be affected by something, the Sibling is being pushed away, there is discord among the Radiants, and no one knows if or how those things are related. I like the theory that the Unmade are taking advantage of Honor’s (probably ongoing, at this point) splintering to try to infiltrate Urithiru. While we don’t see evidence in the archive of all the same kinds of issues Kholinar is facing, the presence of multiple Unmade would undoubtedly have an effect. If Sja-anat is there, she could be corrupting both sapient and natural spren. We know Re-Shephir was at some point actually trapped there by a Lightweaver. We don’t know much about the effects of several of the Unmade, but it certainly seems possible that a general air of dissatisfaction and disagreement might be a result of, say, an entity referred to as the Dustmother… (that would be Chemoarish, if you care).
Bruised & Broken
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll desert?” Kaladin asked. “Or worse, that I can’t control my temper? I might be dangerous.”
“Not as dangerous as being short manned,” Beard said. “You know how to kill people? That’s good enough for us.”
AA: I can’t help thinking that these men would fit right into Bridge Four, light eyes and all. They really are desperate; I think many of them are broken enough to become squires or Radiants themselves, if only they ever got the chance.
“This is Kal, sir!” Noro said. “Found him haunting the street outside. Deserter, with a shash brand.”
“On a lighteyes? Storms, man. Who did you kill?”
“It’s not the one that I killed that got me my brands, sir. It’s the one I didn’t kill.”
“That has the sound of a practiced explanation, soldier.”
“That’s because it is.”
AA: Heh. We’ve heard this explanation a time or two, all right.
AP: I do wonder if his reception would have been different if he were a darkeyes with the brand. It’s possible they are giving him some benefit of the doubt because he is a lighteyes. But they are definitely desperate for recruits, so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.
AA: It’s an interesting question, though. Do his eyes ever go back to being dark while he’s with them? I don’t think so—but if they did, the reaction would be more concerning the change itself than his darkeyed status. I guess we’ll never know.
Squires & Sidekicks
Kaladin instantly loved this place, and the state of the men spoke highly of Highmarshal Azure.
…
… Kaladin now picked out another undercurrent in the room. Men sharpening weapons that had chips in them. Armorers repairing cuts in leather—cuts made by lances in battle. Conspicuously empty seats at most of the tables, with cups set at them.
These men had suffered losses.
AA: I do like watching Kaladin get the feel of this place. We get to learn so much about them through his observations.
“I know Amaram,” the man with hairy hands said. “I did secret missions for him, back in my operative days.”
Kaladin looked at him, surprised.
“Best to ignore Beard,” Lieutenant Noro said. “It’s what the rest of us do.”
AA: I really don’t have anything insightful to say about Beard here, but… I just needed to include him.
Kaladin got a second bowl of stew, and as he settled back into his place, he realized something with a shock.
Storms. They’re all lighteyes, aren’t they?
Every person in the room, from the cook to the armorers, to the soldiers doing dishes. In a group like this, everyone had a secondary duty, like armoring or field surgery. Kaladin hadn’t noticed their eyes. The place had felt so natural, so comfortable, that he’d assumed they were all darkeyed like him.
He knew that most lighteyed soldiers weren’t high officers. He’d been told that they were basically just people—he’d been told it over and over. Somehow, sitting in that room finally made the fact real to him.
AA: You’re forgetting something, Kaladin… you aren’t darkeyed any more. Honestly, sometimes he’s so determinedly darkeyed that I’m surprised even his bond can turn his eyes light.
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Oathbringer
AP: It’s difficult to change your own self image. Kaladin is a darkeyes, he grew up as a darkeyes, and if his bond was broken for some reason, he would be a darkeyes again. This also makes me wonder, are lighteyes as a result of a nahel bond heritable? The people of Roshar have what we would consider to be unnatural eye colors, such as gold. Are these a result of their ancestors having brown eyes that were lightened by the bond?
AA: I have never figured out how the eye color caused by bonding (either a living or dead spren) gets into the DNA. Or maybe it doesn’t, but the fact that the bonding makes your eyes light gave everyone a reason to think that “light eyes” was the “best” form, and that became the de facto ruling class? I find that a singularly unsatisfactory explanation, though, because it requires an entire culture (several of them, even) to be incredibly stupid about agreeing on who is in charge.
Are you out there, Sah? Did they bring you and the others here? What of Sah’s little daughter, who had collected flowers and clutched playing cards like a treasured toy? Was Khen there, the parshwoman who had demanded Kaladin retain his freedom, despite being angry at him for the entire trip?
Winds send that they hadn’t been dragged further into this mess.
AA: Sigh.
AP: This makes me so sad, knowing what happens to them later.
Places & Peoples
Hush about it? Storms. This sort of thing simply didn’t happen in Vorin society. Not like in the ballads and stories. He’d been in three armies, and had never seen a woman holding a weapon. Even the Alethi scouts carried only knives. He’d half expected a riot when he’d armed Lyn and the others, although for Radiants, Jasnah and Shallan had already supplied precedent.
AP: Yaaasssss, I am here for it! I like how this was done in the narrative, and how they have to keep the “secret.” Alethi society is so messed up that they won’t promote the best people for the job, and reading about what a struggle it is for the women to be involved in any aspect of warfare can be frustrating. But to have the whole guard rally around Azure and do what they need to to preserve her authority and ability to command is awesome.
AA: It just occurred to me… Back in Words of Radiance, the assassin Liss carefully hid the fact that she possessed a Shardblade. (Shallan, of course, hid hers for many years as well, but that’s more complicated.) And we have the “masculine and feminine arts” shtick, which over time really shifted women away from even thinking about trying to get a Shardblade, or do any swordsmanship training. And yet… when it came down to the crunch, no one in the actual armies seemed to flip out about Shallan and Jasnah having Blades. Even when Shallan revealed her Blade to Vathah & co. when she killed Tyn, it seemed their reaction was more “you have a Shardblade!!” than “but you’re a girl!!” It’s almost like… when you’re fighting for your lives and homeland, you don’t really take time to care about who’s wielding the sword, if they’re good at what they do.
Not sure if that makes sense. But going forward, it’s absolutely certain that things will be changing. There are going to be a lot of women with Shardblades once the new Radiants start leveling up.
Tight Butts and Coconuts
“The highmarshal is a woman?” Kaladin hissed.
“We don’t talk about the marshal’s secret,” Beard said.
“Secret?” Kaladin said. “It’s pretty storming obvious.”
AP: It’s not though if you aren’t at the wall.
AA: But they keep hushing him even when it’s just Wall Guard. I wonder if they don’t talk about it—even among themselves—because they’re uncomfortable with it, or because they want to make sure no one slips and lets an outsider know.
Weighty Words
… his brands made something of a stir among them. Adolin and Elhokar finally emerged, their illusions intact. So what was wrong with Kaladin’s? The sphere Shallan had given him was still infused.
AA: We had fun talking about this in the comments, but we still have no proof. This eliminates one possibility: We know Kaladin didn’t drain the sphere carrying his illusion. Beyond that, we still don’t know for sure what messed up the illusion. This is obviously intentional: When someone asked Brandon about it, he said:
RAFO. (But don’t read too much into this particular RAFO.)
Whatever that means…
Meaningful/Moronic/Mundane Motivations
He went back to the mansion and forced himself to chat with some of the guards at the lighteyed tent, though he learned nothing, and his brands made something of a stir among them.
…
Kaladin gathered Drehy and Skar, then joined the king and Adolin as they started the walk home.
AA: So Kaladin goes back to the party, where he was supposed to be all along according to the plan. There are a couple of things I want to consider here…
One is the difference between the attitude toward his shash brand in the two different groups. The Wall Guard saw it as a good thing; they need dangerous men to face that army outside. The lighteyed bodyguards seem to find it much more disturbing—probably because their job is to guard their masters from people exactly like (they perceive) Kaladin, here within the city.
The other thing is the question of Kaladin playing fast and loose with the team plan. It’s pretty obvious that in terms of furthering their researches, he learned a lot more from going off script than he would have if he’d stuck to the plan. Does that justify his maverick tendencies—tendencies he would in no way tolerate in those who report to him? I could sometimes be tempted to accuse Brandon of Gary-Stuing Kaladin: When he disobeys orders and/or does his own thing, it generally turns out to have been a brilliant idea. The thing that mitigates against that accusation is that at least it sometimes fails because of other people’s behavior. (See also: Side Carry, which backfired spectacularly.) I wonder, though; was this intended to be a throw-away “Oh, that’s just the way it worked out” scenario, or are we supposed to be increasingly aware of Kaladin’s tendency to think that orders and plans don’t apply to him? And if the latter, where is this going…?
Cosmere Connections
He settled onto a long wooden bench, near a fidgety little ardent who was scribing glyphwards onto pieces of cloth for the men.
AA: I know, I’m probably just being paranoid, but… might this be Nazh? Any time there’s a random person who doesn’t seem to fit the scene, I get suspicious.
AP: I mean, maybe? But I don’t think he is out of place. Kholinar is a rough place for Ardents right now. The guard house is probably the safest place for him.
AA: Heh. Fair point. If you don’t want to be part of the whole Cult thing, you need some distance from the palace!
And then there’s this Highmarshal Azure person we were all waiting to meet.
“The highmarshal,” Noro said quickly, “is incredible. …
“He fought like a Voidbringer… We were almost overwhelmed, then Azure joined us, holding aloft a gleaming Shardblade. He rallied our numbers, inspired even the wounded to keep fighting. Storms. Felt like we had spren at our backs, holding us up, helping us fight.”
Kaladin narrowed his eyes. “You don’t say…”
AA: So what was that, anyway? It doesn’t sound like any Awakening I can think of, but it certainly sounds like Azure was doing something.
AP: She’s also definitely gotten a level up since we saw her last. No telling how many new tricks she’s learned.
The highmarshal wore an appropriately azure cloak—a lighter shade than the traditional Kholin blue—with a mail coif down around the neck and a helm carried in hand.
She was also a she.
Kaladin blinked in surprise, and heard a gasp from Syl up above.
AA: You know what I’m going to say, right? … What was that? The mere fact of Azure turning out to be a woman might shock Kaladin, but hardly Syl. It seems like she must have seen something odd about Azure… but she never tells Kaladin what that is.
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AP: That’s a really good point! What did Syl notice?
He couldn’t place her age, though the scars probably made her look older than she really was.
AA: Heh. I really, really doubt that, Kaladin. She’s far older than you think! But what did she do to get those scars, and why weren’t they healed by Breaths? How much Breath (or Stormlight) is she holding now?
“Damnation me if I blame a man for deserting that,” Azure said.
AA: I kind of assume that this awkward wording is supposed to be a “foreigner!” wink? Because… that’s just so awkward.
“I want you to think,” Azure said. “I tell the men—this Wall Guard, this is redemption. If you fight here, nobody will care what you did before. Because they know if we fall, this city and this nation will be no more.”
AA: There’s a lot more to her speech, which culminates with the conviction that Kaladin will come back and join up. What happened to her in the intervening years. I so much want to know what happened since she walked out of the Hallandren palace.
AP: It also makes me wonder just how many years it has been. Do we have any kind of timeline on that?
AA: As far as I know, we don’t have a timeline. We know that the Nightblood novel comes after Warbreaker, obviously, and the only thing I could find is a WoB from 2016 where Brandon said that he didn’t think there were any books set between Nightblood and The Way of Kings, chronologically.
“I think,” Kaladin said, eyes narrowed, “I might have found us another Radiant.”
AA: Heh. Something like that. Sort of. A little bit.
I recall in the beta discussion, totally jokingly suggesting that maybe Azure could be Vivenna, though the best possibilities seemed to be a new Radiant, or maybe a Herald (Chana, likely) at a stretch. It seemed much too visible a position for any of the worldhoppers we’ve seen so far. I thought she was a Lightweaver or an Elsecaller, so she could Soulcast food without drawing the screamers (on the theory that it was mostly the fabrials that got their attention) and I was… sorta kinda almost halfway right in that she was at least the one who was organizing the supply of the food to the city. Wrong about the rest of it, though!
Quality Quotations
- But in here there’s always a stew bubbling and bread baking.
Okay, then. Let’s talk more in the comments! Next week, we’ll tackle chapter 71, going back in time with past!Dalinar as he arrives at Rathalas for the second time.
Alice is still busy with those drama props. High school musicals FTW! But at least the weather has warmed up, however temporarily.
Aubree is preparing for trouble, and make it double!
With regards to whether light eyes from a bond pass to children, here’s a WoB that is pretty ambiguous while suggesting that there is some connection.
Questioner
My question has to do with the color of Shallan’s eyes currently, because we’ve noticed over the books that Kaladin’s eyes, as he’s continued to use his Surge, changed to lighter and lighter blue. Whereas one could argue that Shallan is farther in her Ideals than Kaladin is, yet her eyes have not changed at all.
Brandon Sanderson
Right, ’cause they were already light.
Questioner
‘Cause they were already light? So it only affects lightness or darkness in the eyes, not necessarily any other color?
Brandon Sanderson
It’s not like it is– It’s not like it’s saying “Light minus 50%”.
Questioner
It’s not like Honor is blue and–
Brandon Sanderson
No. It is not. It is just kind of the way that the changes the Stormlight is making the body and certain people are already descended from people who had repeated, over time, changes by the body which stopped physically… That’s not to say that all lighteyes that’s where they came from. There are some that are natural mutations.
I eventually recognized Azure as Vivenna. That’s unusual, as I seldom notice anything in a book that’s not explicitly spelled out, but it probably happened when she said something about Zahel (or described him) or used some Nalthisian expression; I don’t remember. But since when have her eyes been orange? Since always? I don’t recall hearing that before, but Warbreaker told us little about the sisters’ appearances aside from the Royal Locks and Vivenna being taller than Siri.
Syl may have noticed something additionally unusual about Azure here, but I took her gasp to be surprise at a female soldier, after spending so much time around Kaladin in an army of a culture where Women Aren’t Soldiers. I could be wrong.
I was a Marine then came back to the Army National Guard. I absolutely get this chapter. I’ve shown up at new units knowing none of them – and quickly realized they were my people, my new best friends.
UPDATE: I’ve edited the post to replace my paraphrase with the verbatim quotation about the timing of the parsh enslavement and the Recreance. Thanks, Austin!
Name drop! *Squees in delight, then coughs into hand and tries to maintain dignity* For anyone interested, this is on the WoB Arcanum, thoughly poorly transcribed. In fact, the transcription was so unrecognizable to me that I had been thinking that my question had been overlooked in the transcription process. But last night I signed up with the Arcanum and was able to better access the audio file. I submitted an update to the WoB (but I guess it has to go through some kind of review process first? I’m not sure how it works). https://wob.coppermind.net/events/374/#e12242 This is my transcription, aided by my memory (and I think the audio is pretty clear for most of it).
@@.-@ – Lol, too funny! Great minds and all that ;)
Aerona @2 – I don’t think we were ever told Vivenna’s eye color in Warbreaker, now that you mention it. I had assumed that her orange eyes here were her choice, but as far as we know she’s not Returned and may not necessarily have control over that part of her appearance – just her hair color. We were given some hints that with her Returned blood, she might be able to do more than she thinks, but… we don’t know. So… maybe it’s natural, maybe it’s Investiture?
Black_Dread @3 – I thought that might be the case, though I haven’t experienced it myself. Also, thank you for your service, from the bottom of my heart.
Austin – perfect timing? Heh. :D
So I don’t remember, is Vivenna here chasing Vasher or Nightblood Or both?
I’m thinking that the scars might be like Vasher’s perpetually scruffy beard, i.e. just a part of a disguise.
I don’t think Kaladin is as much of a maverick as you make him out to be, IIRC, and I believe someone pointed out in the comments last chapter, Kal was just taking a walk to clear his head/psych himself up for hanging out with a bunch of Lighteyes when he came across the Wall Guard. Since his ACTUAL mission was to find out more about Azure, he does go off with the Wall Guard, but when he comes back he still meets and questions the Lighteyed Officers/Bodyguards like he was told to do.
As for Azure/Vivenna, this was one I missed until they get to Shadesmar, when she mentioned that the one she was after was Nightblood and that she knew Zahel/Vasher (I also missed the Zahel/Vasher connection the first time I read WoR. I recognized Nightblood, but even that didn’t clue me in to the fact that Vasher had also come to Roshar. I stumbled across this tidbit in a WOB). Adding to the misdirect was the fact that we hadn’t seen Szeth and Nightblood show up yet, so I didn’t recognize the similarities with Azure’s sword (which is a “she”, IIRC).
As for her appearance, we know that Returned can change their appearance, and most choose to look like Ideal versions of themselves, but that’s not the only thing they can make themselves look like, as Vasher showed. Does this mean that Vivenna is Returned? Or does she just have enough Breath/Stormlight/Other Investiture to be able to do the same thing? (We also know Hoid has several different ways he can change his appearance, including Yolish Lightweaving, and, by the end of the book Rosharan Lightweaving, and he has a lot of Breath, too.)
ETA: Dangit, I forgot that Vivenna has Returned Blood, and that might also play a factor in her ability to change her appearance without being Returned herself.
I think the bond (living or dead spren) changes the eyes light, we know that. Enough use of the bond changes the Spiritual DNA and that is how it becomes hereditary. We’ve already seen Spiritual DNA being hereditary for someone whose DNA didn’t originally have special Investiture: it’s the same idea as all of the mistborn/mistings being the descendants of the original lerasium-using mistborn.
What did Syl notice about Azure? Two possibilities came immediately to mind. The first is boring: Azure has Breaths and Syl can see it. The second is more intriguing. Syl is old, Vivenna is old. Do they know each other from a long time ago? Or maybe even not that long ago? Vivenna uses Shadesmar for worldhopping and that’s where Syl lived before tWoK; maybe they met on a spren ship or something? Wouldn’t it be interesting if interaction with Vivenna is what drove Syl to enter the Physical Realm and find Kaladin to begin with?
What is special about Azure inspiring her troops? I agree it doesn’t seem like other Awakening we’ve seen. But Nightblood certainly does some crazy things that aren’t like other Awakenings and Azure does have an Invested blade. Maybe it has a command like “defend good” and somehow that’s behind it?
I really want to know what Heightening Vivenna is at here. Does she have a Divine Breath? If she doesn’t, I assume she has at least 2000 Breaths (Fifth Heightening) since she’s not aging.
Edit: Wait, is Vivenna actually not old? If we don’t know how much time is between this and Warbreaker and as @14 Austin pointed out, she can change the appearance of her age with her Returned blood abilities, then maybe she hasn’t lived an unnaturally long time? I assumed she had because it’s possible with Breath and most of the worldhoppers seem to have long long lives, but I guess that’s not necessarily a valid assumption here, yet.
I mean… a woman shows up with a ‘shardblade’ at a critical moment and everyone is just okay with it? Sure. But in the long run, having scars and distinctive light eyes will go a long way to marking sure that your disguise is legit.
This is the first time I caught a world hopper other than Hoid the first time through on a read from the very beginning. Just the color name was enough, and I love seeing how much she’s grown up since Warbreaker where I almost couldn’t stand to read her chapters until the end.
Kaladin (and Shallan’s) tendency to go off plan the moment it suits them drives me crazy. Sure, it works out all the time (so far) because they’re the main characters. (Almost but not quite Gary Stu as pointed out.) At some point this is gonna become something bigger, on this reread it’s starting to feel like a setup almost. I just hope too many people (or my characters!) don’t die because of it!
Lastly-thestew sounds good. We need Deanna to make some good recipes for Roshar now, the Scadrial ones all look amazing!
@11 – I know Brandon talked about Vivenna’s abilities, and I finally remembered it was in the annotations for Warbreaker:
So I guess that means she can’t give herself scars…
@7 Wetlander your comment reminds me of those old Maybelline commercials.
Hushed voice, “Maybe she’s born with it.” Singing, “Maybe it’s investiture.”
@14: I know she changed her appearance again once she got to Shadesmar, but I don’t remember if the scars were still there.
I’ve always found that the difference between a good army and a great one lies in fostering an environment where a soldier willing to show initiative within reason is encouraged to do so. Kaladin goes off script too much however. That’s because up until Dalinar he’s never had a competent commander. Elkohar as the head of this mission looks much like Kal’s commanders of old to him.
As for Lady Vivi, at the time of Warbreaker Biochromia was a relatively new art as far as Cosmere magic systems go. Crazy theory. What if they’ve learned to temporarily transfer some limited benefits of heightenings to others, like Radiants and Squires? That’d be cool right? It’s probably just cultural conditioning though. Follow the guy with the big glowing sword, even if he isn’t a he.
I can’t remember if I figured out if she was viveienne or not or if I cheated. I think I was suspscious when she mentioned zahel, and when it became obvious her shard blade wasn’t a shard blade. In terms of the light eyes, just from the context of the book, it does seem they ARE genetic, with a trace of inveisture in them. I belive that Dalinar saw it with the feverstone keep dream, that when the soliders picked up the blades, their eyes became light. it’s heavily implied that when the Radiants were around, they were the only ones with light eyes, and when the Recreance happened, and people started to loot the blades and plate, the remains of the magic and spren kind of sink into them, and they keep the blades long enough for genetics to start kicking in, changing them into lighteyes. permanatly. Of course, this is all conjecture and what I picked up from what the books told us, I’m not a master sanderson scholar to read up on all of the Words of Brandon haha
A couple thoughts I had for how she could have “encouraged” everyone is:
– Just inspiring to see someone with a storming shardblade!
– Heightening benefits of pitch and tone allow for greater ability to speak in a charismatic/inspiring way.
– As she moved through the defenders she took opportunities to touch clothing and command them to “strengthen arms” or some such command. Then after the battle she could go and comfort/congratulate the defenders, and honor the dead through a touch, and regain the breaths.
Regarding Kaladin’s independence, at this point I think it would just be regarded as an officer trait thing. An anecdote from history that I can recall is someone once with exasperation saying “The All-Highest has made you a Major because you’re supposed to know when not to follow orders!”. That was pre-WWI Germany, and those guys certainly took things seriously.
Breath is good for more than just Awakening.
@LazerWulf
Nightblood is also “she” if you believe Lift. They’re swords, they have neither sex nor gender, and people hear their internal voices based on the hearer’s preconceptions.
@Joyspren
Per Brandon, the correct term is “Shardblade”. They derive their power from the Shard Endowment, after all.
@21, continued
Further elaborating, this is the general situation in which this is regarded as good practice: You tell a delegated sub-commander (important to stress “commander“) what you want done, and secondarily how you want it accomplished. It is their reserve to modify the second part to achieve the first part if warranted.
Where this can break down is when a commander tells a sub-commander how they want an objective accomplished, but keeps what that objective actually ultimately is to themselves (something that is done, but is generally the a mark of a neophyte or incompetent- a lapse, or a lack of self-confidence- a way to jealously preserve authority that one isn’t sure of).
@22 Carl it’s just kind of odd, that Viv heard the same voice that Vasher had heard when she held the blade, and indicated heard it as a “he” I mean, lift is strange, so who know how her brain processes things.
@lazerwolf why thank you. I rather like my theory that Kal was just going for a walk before joining all the Nasty lighteyes for dinner. I’m too lazy to double check but I’m sure there was a sentence in the chapter that supports this, and not him going rogue again it should also be noted that when Kaladin debriefed the team later, they thought he did a good job in finding the Wall Guard. As for Azure, I think I picked up who she was later on when when Kaladin actually joins the guard. I also didn’t realize the 5th heitening granted no aging. That’s a neat trick. Maybe syl saw something weird about her sword? And that’s why she gasped. I also like the fact that his prejudice of the lighteyes meets reality hear. He’s finally around 10rs and realized they are people too. Which is good for him, as I think his time here helps him, especially later when hes hanfgit out with them and finds out they dislike the high and mighty lighteyes too.
I hope we get a POV from HA (aka Vivenna) as to why she took such an active role when she world hopped to Roshar. She had much more to lose (her life, for starters) than anything I think she could have gained by taking the responsibilities she did. I guess it is coincidence that she has light eyes. If she had dark eyes, I wonder if she could have been the Wall Guard’s leader. I also would like to know if there is any significance in the Cosmere as to the name of Azure. Why did she pick that name? I know in the real world it means blue in Spanish and colors are significant on her home world. But I doubt her home world uses Spanish.
I hope Sah’s daughter survived (as we know Sah does not). I could see Brandon having Sah’s daughter be a secondary or tertiary level character in the second 5 books.
Alice re Wall Guard accepting of Azure having and using a sword. I think much like Kal did with Bridge 4, I suspect that Azure gained the Wall Guard’s trust. Once she proved herself a competent commander, their training as soldiers in a no win situation took over. They needed somebody to command them at the general level. The Wall Guard may have had it share of lieutenants, but it did not have a general. When Azure proved she could effectively function in that role, the soldiers accepted Azure.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
You know, just discussing Azure makes you see the similarities of her story in this book, and Kaladin’s (and yes, even Moarsh) Kal’s story is that of the classic hero, while Moarsh’s is the anthesis of that, while Azure’s is kind of what Kal could become when he gets rid of his hangups just kind of interesting when you think about it. I know everyone here has a hang-up with Moarsh because of his actions, but I always appreciate that he and kal were so similar, that Kal could have fallen in the same trap of anger that Moarsh did. Azure, on the other hand, shows a woman we know was unconfident in her abilities years ago, but has changed all for the better, now a confient woman with her own adventure, where she is even no longer with her master.
Side note: Blue in Spanish is azul. Azul and azure likely have a common root word but, well, they ain’t the same.
@26: Azure is a specific shade of Blue. According to Wikipedia,”On the RGB color wheel, “azure” is defined as the color at 210 degrees, i.e., the hue halfway between blue and cyan.”
As far as languages go, I believe that Brandon’s stance is that the books are translated to English from whatever language is really being spoken, as long as the POV character understands that language. Shallan understands both Alethi and Veden, so when she hears those languages, both are translated to English even though they are 2 different languages. Galladon (from Elantris) speaks in Arlish, but uses Duladel words like “sule” (friend) and “kolo?” (understand?), and so the Duladel words are left untranslated (either because Raoden doesn’t speak Duladel, or, more likely, just to illustrate that Galladon is speaking Sel’s equivalent of Spanglish). When he’s on Roshar, he says “friend” and “understand?” in the local language, which Ishikk understands, so those words are translated to English (though he does, at one point, revert to speaking Duladel, which Ishikk does NOT speak, and so the only word he picks up is “kayana”, which he does not know means “crazy”, so it is left untranslated to English).
re: What did Syl react to
I’m on the team that thinks she noticed something about Azure’s “shardblade” rather than reacting to her gender. After all, Syl is old enough to remember female KR and therefore not be surprised by seeing one.
re: Azure inspiring troops
Maybe she burned Zinc, or some variation thereof.
It sounds EXACTLY like Awakening.
First read it threw me off because I was imagining spren but then I realized the Alethi wear pretty traditional military uniforms (the kind that you really only see in marching bands and ceremonial garb nowadays). She Awakened their clothing….they just happened to still be in it. This explains how the wounded got back on their feet too.
In her last scene we see her preparing to a Awaken a large amount of cloth to defend the ship too. She definitely got (or will have gotten since that book hasn’t been written yet) a power up.
How does the investiture swap work? I know they can substitute Breaths with Stormlight. But Stormlight is available in basically infinite amounts compared to Breaths. Can they level up their Hightenings with Stormlight?
Azure is a specific shade of blue (blue sky). It originally means lapis lazuli.
Syl might be surprised about the unusual Shardblade.
With regard to Syl gasping at the sight of Azure, with the amounts of Breaths she must be holding, I imagine she is loaded with Investiture and maybe Syl was able to sense that? Or maybe she senses her Returned heritage, since Returned are sort of Cognitive Shadows, and being a Type I Biochromatic Entity they themselves are probably heavily invested with their Divine Breath. Or maybe something about her non-shardblade Shardblade threw Syl off. Lots of things there.
Do his eyes ever go back to being dark while he’s with them?
Without looking it up, I am pretty sure I remember that in the next Kaladin chapter or somewhere it is mentioned that Kal secretly summoned Syl every few hours while being with the Wall Guard to keep his eyes from reverting to dark.
“Oathbringer” is the book where I caught the most Cosmere hints so far (though I still missed so much, but I was still so proud of myself). If I remember correctly, I was suspicious of Azure from the start, and I might have suspected Vivenna from quite early on, as Nightblood and Vasher were in the game and now her sword was described as having an “otherwordly look” (I’m still curious regarding all the properties it might or might not have), but I think I became convinced when she also used a colour metaphor (betting her red life on it, I did look this one up). Mentioning Zahel and doing the kata was a dead giveaway.
I took Syl’s gasp simply signifying that after all this talk about the Highmarshal being a man, she was also just surprised to see a woman, but it’s probably more than that, indeed.
Also, it’s more a last week’s issue, but I’m in camp with smaughthemagnificent and LazerWulf – it also seemed to me as well that Kal was just so reluctant to join the lighteyes in the party that he felt he needed to take some time to just take a short walk before going into the tent and prepare himself for it. As it happened, opportunity knocked to learn more about his real objective, so he took it and afterwards went to the party as instructed. At least that was my take on it, too.
@20 and others. I also think she awakened the soldiers’ uniforms. A uniform would be a perfect subject for it because it’s already person shaped, made of organic material (unless the Alethi have invented polyester), and it’s already expected to be there.
@32 bird I remember, but currently can’t find, a WoB where he said it was possible to use stormlight to fuel Awakening, but that as of the current book Vasher hadn’t figured out more than just burning stormlight instead of breaths to keep his divine breath.
LazerWulf @11 – “I don’t think Kaladin is as much of a maverick as you make him out to be…”
Perhaps not, but he treats his orders pretty cavalierly. Of course in the story-telling it worked out perfectly, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t go off on his own, for much longer than even he planned, and he only told people who wouldn’t/couldn’t tell him not to. What if Elhokar or Adolin had needed him? He was supposed to be their bodyguard, after all. At this point, he seems to consider that a pose, not a task, and it doesn’t faze him in the least to go off and spend a couple of hours or more where the team would have no chance of finding him. Would he have been pleased if Skar or Drehy had done the same? I doubt it. No one got on his case for it, probably because nothing went wrong and he learned a lot (and also because Elhokar hero-worships him), but I’m betting that if one of his men had done it, they’d have heard a few hard words about it. (Well, if they were real people rather than characters in a book, but we’re all about reasonable suspension of disbelief, right?)
Austin @14 – Thanks for the quote. I knew I’d read it somewhere, but couldn’t remember the details. Good stuff.
soursavior @15 – dingdingding – You win! That’s exactly what was going through my head when I wrote it. Heh.
LazerWulf @16 – I just went and reread that section earlier today, because I was curious about some other things. When they went to Shadesmar, Vivenna’s hair turned sort of an ash grey for a while, and then she turned it black again. The scars seemed to Adolin to be less noticeable. Not sure what that proves… but there it is.
smaugthemagnificent @25 – “it should also be noted that when Kaladin debriefed the team later, they thought he did a good job in finding the Wall Guard.” I went looking for this earlier, and I couldn’t find a scene where he debriefed the team at all. He mentions at the very end of this chapter that he thinks he may have found another Radiant, but there’s no debriefing scene. The closest we come is in Chapter 73, where Kaladin “had joined the Wall Guard officially upon Elhokar’s orders” – so like I said, sure, it worked out well and Elhokar thinks Kaladin is nearly perfect anyway. Just because it turned out to be “the right thing to do” doesn’t mean it was the right way to do it.
@many – I do love the idea of Vivenna Awakening the soldiers’ uniforms to strengthen them, but that leaves me wondering what she drained the color from, and why no one noticed it. Unless she’s found a way to Awaken things on Roshar without using color, I can’t see how no one would have mentioned a bunch of stuff having turned grey during the battle. (More specifically, I can’t see Brandon hiding that aspect of the situation, if that’s what happened.)
@wetlander if she can change her hair from grey to black at will, could she have found a way to drain color from her hair? She could drain the color and immediately recolor it if she had enough practice. I know normally only Nightblood can drain the color from living things, but technically hair is dead except right at the root. Also, maybe her fancy new sword gives her workarounds.
I am a little late for commenting today, but I needed to state this chapter gave me a warn fuzzy feeling inside when I re-read it. I came to see this is what Kaladin wanted: be part of a small group of people who wouldn’t be threatened by anyone else. I felt a strong need for belonging here which I found odd since Kaladin has Bridge 4 and, from my perspective, isn’t in need of more belonging. And yet we have this chapter.
I enjoyed reading Alice’s questioning as to whether or not Brandon was Gary-Stuing Kaladin by allowing him to disregard orders and yet almost always save the day as if he knew better than everyone else, if as if he were immune to make a mistake. Mind, Kaladin is certainly not immune to make a mistake, but so far, his “disobedience” has always paid off. Sure, there was the side-carry, but I need to emphasis the purpose of the side-carry was to protect Bridge 4 from the Parshendi arrows. In this regards, the tactic was a success. The side-carry indeed did protect Bridge 4 from enemy arrows. Where it fails is it didn’t work out within the army’s overall strategy which was to use the bridgemen as living targets in order allow the real soldiers to move closer. That’s why it failed. But it succeeded in achieving it’s original purposes. Kaladin just didn’t grasp the army actually had zero interest in preserving the bridgemen’s life which isn’t something he could have grasped easily.
So all in all, whenever Kaladin does his own thing, disregards orders, wanders on his own, he is usually successful. I personally am together with those who feel a little annoyed at how Kaladin allows himself to disobey orders, even if the behavior has yet to cause problems. On the other hand, it may just be Kaladin isn’t really a soldier at heart nor is he a follower. Paradoxically, today I read other readers argue Kaladin isn’t suited to be in charge and was more of a follower, so I ended up feeling there was more than one way to argue for it.
Is it enough to state there is some level of Gary-Stuing into Kaladin? A Gary Stu is meant to be an over-powered character without visible flaws. So while Kaladin definitely is over-powered, he does have very visible flaws. I mean, his habit of ignoring order is technically a flaw from one evolving within a military organisation. His habit to take responsibility for everyone he considers part of his “flock” also is a weakness: not only does it rub his “flock” from the right to make its own decisions, it also creates an abnormal weight Kaladin has to carry. He is often described as being the one character crumbling under responsibilities. My take is his *real* responsibilities aren’t crushing, it is the ones he adds to them which are. Because they are absurd. Because no one can be responsible for everyone the way he thinks he needs to be.
So Kaladin does have flaws. Interestingly, his counter part in the narrative is Adolin who is not over-powered, but has no visible flaws. Hence, if we group them together, I think that yeah, we’d get a *real* Gary Stu.
On the side note, I too wondered how it was Alethi accepted Azure so readily given how important tasks division in between gender is within their society.
@39 See, I don’t see Kaladin disobeying orders and getting away with it as always happening. he definitely got punished for the side carry, just that the punishment allowed for him to realize something was special about him. Kal got imprisoned for stepping up to Amaran and asking for the duel, Kal’s friendships both with the wall guard and with the parsh couldn’t save either group. Kal has made several huge mistakes that has cost lives and even his own powers for a time. Kal doesn’t see the big picture, heck if he did, he might have realized that Amaran wasn’t as honorable as he appeared. and like you said, his taking responsiblty is probably his biggest flaw. Its like his father said, a surgeon has to learn to let go, that he can’t be responsible for everyone, which I’m positive is what the next words are, that you can’t save everyone, that you have to let go. it’s building up, and he almost crashed this book because of it.
@40: I don’t think I like the “he got away with it” truly applies here. What I meant more is Kaladin’s ideas are often sound, hence his disobedience tends to be rewarded, in book.
Now, in the specific case of the side-carry, Kaladin didn’t actually disobey: he asked his commanding officers if he could use this new strategy he has practiced with his team and they said yes. Kaladin did nothing wrong. He had an idea having for purpose to protect the bridgemen from enemy arrows. He brought the idea to his superiors and his superiors authorized him to use it in battle. It wasn’t Kaladin’s task to foresee his strategy would have larger impact within the army. It wasn’t up to him to see the big picture, it was up to his superiors. They are the ones who failed. Not Kaladin. Kaladin is absolutely not to blame for the side-carry being a failure. Thinking some more about it, I wouldn’t even rank it as an example of “Kaladin disobeying”.
The 4 on 1 duel though is a better example of Kaladin stepping out of bond though technically, he wasn’t ordered to not say a word. This is tricky though as Kaladin knew about the plan, could guess his accusations wouldn’t be well received and later refused to withstand the punishment. In this case, yeah, I’d argue this indeed was an example of Kaladin actions causing him trouble.
On the matter of his fourth oath, I read something I found interesting today. I read somehow argued Kaladin’s dilemma, in Shadesmar, was to accept Dalinar wasn’t the priority and he needed to focus on those being in there with him. Saying the 4th oath would have forced him to try to protect Shallan and Adolin whereas it was Dalinar he wanted to protect. I always thought the 4th oath meant Kaladin had to leave Adolin to die to save the living. Mind, maybe it means both.
Awakening the soldiers’ uniforms to assist them would be interesting and it’s a cool idea. It would also imply that Vivenna has become much better at Awakening since Warbreaker. She’d also need the Ninth Heightening, which would require about 20,000 Breaths, unless she touched every tunic and legging to Awaken it. (Ninth grants Greater Awakening, removing the requirement to touch the target. It also includes the Sixth, Instinctive Awakening, which would partly explain her greater ability.)
Agreeing with @Gepeto on one thing: Kaladin’s fatal flaw (in this book) is that he makes himself responsible for things he can’t control and feels terrible guilt for things that he could not prevent, even though he came very close to killing himself trying. He’s over-heroic.
Adolin, his foil, is heroic too. He is perfectly willing to risk his life to protect others, but while he regrets those he can’t save, he doesn’t blame himself for not being able to protect everyone. (He has his own, different issues, of course.)
@41: I agree. One of the sharp difference in between Kaladin and Adolin is one focuses too much on what he cannot control whereas the other resolutely focuses on what he can do.
The downside of Kaladin’s behavior is he takes responsibility for too much, for things he shouldn’t be responsible of. It weights on him, it accentuate his depressive mood and, ultimately, it also causes him to fail as he couldn’t differentiate in between those he should protect (Elhokar) and those who decided to attack him (the Parshendis). He wanted the ideal world where everyone he loves just get along and I can’t blame him for arboring such thoughts, but as a military man, he needs to learn to revise his priorities. Sah and the Parshendis just weren’t it. There was nothing he could do about them and yet he still wanted to do something, a paradox which caused enough of an opening for Moash to kill Elhokar. Later in the book, we see Kaladin yearn to find a way to *let go* of his emotions, to *forget* about them, to *not have* the past weight so much on him: it made Shallan’s disintegration into various people extraordinarily seducing. A way to get rid of this pain! Amazing! For a man such as Kaladin who’s never been able to do so, the mere idea of creating alternate selves where those past catastrophes didn’t happen must have sound like the best course of action ever. Of course, Kaladin isn’t well placed to understand the downsite of the opposite behavior, he’s too impacted by the downsite of his behavior.
Now, the downside of Adolin’s behavior, which upon first glance look very healthy, is he never processes. He never deals with emotions. He never stops to consider how it affects him, what he thinks about it, what he wants and so on. He just moves onto one task to the next and each time there is a bump, he remains anchored by taking on yet another task, no matter how small. If Kaladin could learn here how to better move from one task to the next, how to drop tasks which he cannot fulfill to the profit of ones he can, Adolin could learn in stopping and reflect on where his priorities actually are instead of letting other people decide it for him.
Just writing this makes me very excited for book 4! It will be very interesting to read how Brandon plays with his mirrors here and how he has each character evolve and grow. Will they learn something from each other or will their relationship remain cordial, but somewhat distant?
@42 Carl
I think if Vivenna has the 9th Heightening, we see some more impressive and overt Awakening going on when they have to fight. What reason would she have for holding back when she’s fighting for her life and her men are dying around her?
Edit: Unless Awakening summons the screamer spren, that could be a very compelling reason.
@@@@@ Several
One other thing just popped in my mind about the soldier talking about Azure’s inspiration and saying “felt like we had spren at our backs.” It’s possible this is just mundane leadership charisma from Azure, rallying troops the old fashioned way by taking it to the enemy with a powerful weapon. And then the people of Roshar are very familiar with spren and the soldier’s word choice here is just reflective of that, rather than a hint at actual magic.
@41: I was going to wait until the chapter with the Windrunner’s Epigraph talking about the 4th Ideal, but I believe that 4th Ideal to be something along the lines of accepting that you are not able to protect everybody, something I think Kaladin is not capable of doing.
@46 That’s what I’m thinking as well.
@43 Heh “Letting go of the past and emotion” well why doesn’t THAT sound familiar *Glances at Odium, and Moarsh’s situation* I’m so glad that Odium was finlaly brought into play and us seeing what he really wants, and how he cons the humans and parsh to join him. Everytime now that it’s mentioned that someoen needs to let go of the past, or their emotions, reminds me of Him, giving me chills. the radiant’s seem to really be about the opposite, of not giving up, of constantly moving forward, no matter how hard it hurts.
So got a lot to catch up on, but I just wanted to throw these two thoughts in before I dig into the comments.
First, I am not sure if someone brings it up in the comments or not, but there is a WoB that people with returned heritage like Vivienna, can change more than just their hair color. They can change their body, they just need to learn how. So I would imagine she could change her eye color.
Second, regarding Kaladin and how he is acting around lighteyes and sees himself as darkeyes. I think Kaladin really built up part of his identity as being a darkeyes, and I think the change to a lighteyes makes him on some level feel like he is betraying his people. I forget the name of the movie, and I did not personally see it, I had it explained to me in a class years ago, but there was a movie with if I recall correctly Anthony Hopkins as the main character. In the movie, Hopkins plays a person who is genetically black, but due to a mutation, or genetic trait, came out of the womb looking white. It went over his conflict growing up in a black family, identifying as black, but outside the home being seen and received by others as white. Little by little he started taking the “easier” path of being white. On resumes he would check off caucasian instead of african america, and so on. Eventually it led to him meeting a girlfriend who was white, getting married and her getting pregnant. His mother wanted to meet the girl, but since he had gone so long passing as “white” he hid his family from her and her family. His mother was hurt but respected his decision. The real gut punch though was when she said something to the effect of “it is your life, and you make the decisions you make in it. But I ask you what are you going to do when that baby comes and there is a chance it won’t come out like you?” The movie ends at that point I believe. So I could see Kaladin as holding to being darkeyes, because in a way he could feel like he is abandoning his parents, and his friends by taking on the change. That he feels hypocritical if he takes in the benefits being a lighteyes affords him, while other darkeyes don’t get that luxury. So true Kaladin holding to past prejudices isn’t right, but at the same time, you really gotta feel for the guy.
@11 LazerWulf
Agree on all points!
@12 ineptmage
Interesting theory about Syl and Vivienna knowing each other before. For myself I do not think that is the case, but interesting theory all the same and I wish you luck with it!
I think there is more that can be done with Awakening then we think. Vasher did help that little girl forget what happened to her by helping her manipulate her own innate breath. So maybe there is something Vivienna learned to do with awakening that helped? Or maybe the men just felt inspired and ascribed something magical to it when it was not supernatural at all.
I believe, but this is going on recollection, the only way to have a divine breath is to be a returned. So does have returned blood, but I do not think she has a divine breath. Now having said that, if she had a whole host of breath, it would give her immortality. The WoB I mentioned in my other post discusses people with returned blood in them can learn to alter their bodies.
@14 Austin
Thanks for the post! That is what I was talking about. Going through the comments one by one, so sorry for the redundancy.
@17 Evilmonkey
Interesting thoughts regarding awakening!
@20 whitespine
Good points. I especially like the last one. Very clever potential use of awakening.
@26 AndrewHB
I agree on all points!
@27 Steven Hedge
Interest parallel. I like it!
@30 RogerPavelle
Good point regarding inspiring troops. We have no idea what she has been up to, and where she has gone. So maybe she did snag a bead of lerasium herself and become a mistborn or misting like Hoid.
@32 bird
I believe the hack would allow powering awakening with stormlight, but as per Brandon, Vasher at least has not learned how to yet. He has only got as far as feeding his divine breath with stormlight to live.
@34 Mike E.
All great points!
@35 Celebrinnen
Agree on all points!
@37 Wetlandernw
I thought Skar and Drehy(or whatever the otherbridgeman) was there? They were also Adolin and Elhokar’s body guards, so Kaladin wasn’t leaving them undefended.
@40 Steven Hedge
I agree on all points!
@44 ineptmage
Good points. The breath itself does not seem to summon them, but so too does holding stormlight not summoning them. So awakening may summon them because it is kinetic use of the investiture.
@30 and 49 the problem with that theory is that weren’t there only two beads of lerasium in existence? so unless she has a medallion, I can’t see her being a mistborn
@50 Steven Hedge
So this is kind of going down the rabbit hole of vague recollection on my part that would require a lot of digging to back up, so take what I say with a grain of salt but I vaguely recall a few things regarding lerasium.
First, I believe it was the lord ruler that made them while ascended, they didn’t spontaneously pop out of the well
Second, I feel like I read somewhere they potentially drinking from the well, if you survived could cause you to be a mistborn. that one I am less sure of, and in all likelihood am completely wrong
Third, alloys can be made from lerasium that would turn you into a misting. It could be possible (though unlikely) that hoid took a sliver off the bead, and let vivienna alloy it with brass to get soothing or zinc to get rioting. But I admit that is a total stretch.
So basically excellent point Steven Hedge. I think though it would be very unlikely, I do think it could still be a way out there chance.
@51, Scath:
1. That’s correct, but that was with the full power of Preservation
2. The well was a shardpool, but Elend only became a mistborn after he was fed a bead of lerasium.
3. Maybe, but seems really unlikely, given that Hoid has barely interacted with her. I also can’t see him “sharing” power.
I think we just don’t know the full range of Endowment’s Investiture and what it can do, given we still don’t know how she created her sword. Additionally, I thought that rather than her being immortal, she’s just jumping forward in time. We’ve seen members of the 17th shard, from Vin’s time, who don’t seem to have aged either. I assume it’m potentially just the same process.
@52 Keyblazing
I could be merging WoB, but there is a WoB that an aluminum cup could hold the liquid from a shardpool, and that drinking from ruin’s shardpool from Alendi’s time would kill you, but I could have sworn there was a WoB follow up that said if you survived drinking from a shardpool you could become infused. But like I said, it is a very vague recollection, so I am probably wrong on that part.
As to Hoid and Vivienna interacting, I agree it is very unlikely, but not impossible. Yes she doesn’t recognize him when he delivers the sheets of aluminum, but could be he looked different the last time she saw him. Totally stretch and tin foil hat territory, but hey why not right? lol.
True she could potentially be jumping forward in time, but just like you reason that her inspiring the men is probably attributed to awakening (the butler did it), so too I think the easiest answer would be she is immortal from the number of breaths she has.
@43 I wouldn’t say Adolin never processes- he has his mantra of “grieve later” but we have seen him actually keep one of these grief “appointments” when he spent time with Gallant regarding the death of Sureblood. I’d imagine he gets a backlog, though.
I can’t find it in the chapter summaries on Coppermind. How many Fused does Vivenna resolve to fight in Shadesmar when they part company? That may give us an indication of her skill and Heightening since BWS leaves us hanging.
@54: True. I love to use the glass of water metaphor to illustrate it.
In my interpretation, Kaladin’s inner glass of water is very small and constantly full which means it has no room to absorb additional drops of water. So when one falls, he automatically over-flows. He has no buffer. He never opens up the valve to relief the pressure. Adolin is the opposite. His inner glass of water is large, very large, which means it has a lot of room to absorb many drops of water. Once in a while, he does open up the valve to empty some of what has accumulated, but he doesn’t do it often. He does it more often than Kaladin whom has a very small glass to begin with, but he can go one for long periods of time without opening (Kholinar and Shadesmar arcs are good examples) all the while rain drops on his inner glass of water. It is big, so he never over-flows, but drop after drop, it slowly gets more filled and if it over-flows, well, there is more to spill. But so far it hasn’t There is not way to tell if it ever will over-flow.
Kaladin however is constantly in over-flowing mode: I do not foresee this changing. That’s in part why he freezes: he had no room to process the event unfolding in front of him.
So that’s how I see it. Glasses of water.
@ineptmage
I am not saying she does.I’m saying I don’t think she could be a good enough Awakener as of Oathbringer to animate dozens of pieces of cloth in a very subtle way without touching them, which would require the Ninth Heightening (subject to the fact that in Warbreaker, descriptions of Heightenings above the Fifth are acknowledged to be imperfect). Personally I think it was her partly-a-Returned supercharisma.
@steven Hedge
It’s worth mentioning that Odium the divine principle is not evil, any more than Ruin or Endowment. Rayse seems to be a very bad person, and (as the Mistborn books emphasize) it is unbalanced over-application of any principle that leads to evil, which is a characteristic of thinking beings rather than philosophical principles like Dominion or Autonomy. However, Odium in and of itself is not evil and is a necessary component of this world’s God.
@Scáth
Brandon has specifically said that the Royals have a hereditary partial divine Breath and can learn to do more than just change their hair color, but they don’t know about it and none of them have ever actually done so. Hey, the Hallandren Court of Gods could do more with their divine Breaths than they do, but have never learned how either (per Brandon). IIRC he RAFOed the question of how a divine Breath could be inherited.
soursavior @38 – “if she can change her hair from grey to black at will, could she have found a way to drain color from her hair?” Not being Brandon, I can’t say for sure that she couldn’t do this, but … I don’t think it works that way. The hair color is a reflection of her state of mind, in general, though obviously with good control she can fake it too. I just don’t see that it could work to make her hair a constant source of color, but … what do I know? :D
CireNaes @54 – There are eight Fused coming after the Honor’s Path when Azure stays with the ship. It’s worth noting that she also has the sailors cutting bales of cloth into certain shapes, so she seems to have learned a lot about Awakening, and become much more powerful.
Carl @57 –
One minor quibble, which is that Odium is a necessary part of the Cosmere’s (original) God – Adonalsium. But you are correct that the divine principle is not evil in itself. As Frost mentions in one of the letters, Odium/Rayse “bears the weight of God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context.” It would be an interesting study to write out the effects of each of the Shards when taken out of context, versus what they would have been as part of the whole person of Adonalsium.
All this talk on the fourth oath and how Kaladin can’t protect everyone, reminds me of the Serenity Prayer
Seems appropriate for Kaladin
@58
The example that I keep in mind is that it would take Odium to find a given state of affairs detestable.
i.e. “Wait…This sucks!”
@Several I think the problem is everyone is saying the 9th Heightening, which is dead wrong. if anything, Azure could be at the 5th or 6th at this point, the 9th is strickly reserved for the God Kings; least last I checked. Just because viv has returned blood, even god king blood, doesn’t mean that she is or even could be at the 9th Heightening, that would be ALOT of breaths, and it is stated in warbreaker that it’s a very special situation that gets them at that stage. They may have the ability to change their hair and do certain things, but not the same level of the god king doing everything by just speaking and not touching things, I think.
When I think about Azure Awakening a bunch of soldiers’ uniforms, I’m imagining that she went down the row of soldiers touching each one briefly in a comradely way. (A clasped shoulder, etc.) Definitely wasn’t thinking she just remotely Awakened everything.
@wetlander, that’s what I meant about Odium, a component of the previous God of the Cosmere. Note that every time you nitpick me, I earn a small royalty. I own nitpicking.com.
@steven Hedge, there is no reason given in text that anyone can’t be Ninth Heightening. We only know of Returned who have done it. (Vasher/Zahel/Warbreaker/Peacegiver has also been of the Tenth Heightening, in addition to the various God-Kings) but it is never stated or implied that a regular living person couldn’t accept the Breaths if Susebron decided to hand them over. (If Vivenna were of the Tenth she’d be distorting light in weird ways, which we don’t see.) Again, I don’t see that as happening, I’m just saying it is not stated in the books to be impossible.
@soursavior, that would require her to touch every single one of hundreds of soldiers before the battle, and speak a command aloud and in her native language. And if she wanted to strengthen both their arms and legs she’d have to pat them on the shoulder to Awaken the jacket, and the butt to awaken their pants. Um, no, she did not do that. Oh, and then after the battle she would have to around, touch each of them twice again (including the uniforms of the dead ones) and say, “Your breath to mine” in her native language which none of them understand, or lose the Breath permanently. Yes, in principle she could use Stormlight, but even then one thinks she would run out trying to empower hundreds of clothing items, and also I find it very implausible that she figured it out before Vasher of the Five Scholars, and when she had only just arrived on Roshar in the first place.
Speaking Vivenna’s native language, notice that nobody notices her speaking with a non-Alethi accent. She must be using Connection somehow to speak like a native. Medallion from Scadrial? We’ve talked about Zahel doing the same, though, so maybe it’s some Breath effect they invent in Nightblood? This is, of course, the same power that Venli and Dalinar use in different ways, and is Brandon’s version of the great science-fictional convenience, the Universal Translator.
Carl, of course my only nit to pick was that you said “world” instead of “cosmere” or “universe” – which is totally a nit, because we talk about worldbuilding all the time, even though we’re talking about the Cosmere. :) For the rest, I was merely expanding on your point, because its a subject I find very interesting.
Steven, the God King is tenth heightening, and the first on received that treasury of Breath from one man. But it’s a LOT of Breath, and you have to have either a lot of time or a lot of money, and probably both, to acquire that much!
If an Awakener goes outside in a Highstorm and absorbs a lot of Stormlight, they could reach a high Hightening easily (how much Stormlight is the equivalent of a Breath?).
gah! We NEED that 2nd Warbreaker book. We haven’t been given nearly enough clues to know much of anything about Auzur’s powers. Plus isn’t there something broken about her sword? I don’t mean that it isn’t a shardblade but I thought there was something wrong in it?
goddessimho @66 – Azure says of her Blade:
Whether it’s really flawed, or just different than theirs because it’s not made by the Investiture of the same Shard, we don’t really know. We don’t really even know if it’s Invested similar to Nightblood or not; we haven’t been in Azure’s head to know if it’s a sentient blade. And I agree; I want to read that sequel in the worst way! But we may learn more about both in SA4; I sure hope so, because the sequel seems to be a long way off.
@63 if the uniforms are onesies then she’d only have to touch each soldier once, but point taken. It would be a lot of work and a lot of breath.
I was thinking more about Azure’s inspiration of the soldiers. I’m increasingly convinced that it’s possible that the sword is doing this and this is why: we know Nightblood can manipulate the minds of people around it. Nightblood convinces people to commit absurd violence and have an uncontrollable urge to obtain it through only proximity. And it pseudo-mind-controlled that fisherman to catch it out of the sea toward the end of Warbreaker as well. It’s not a very far stretch to imagine that Azure’s blade can affect the minds of those around it.
@65 birgit
I think there has to be something more complicated than simple absorption of stormlight for an Awakener. Remember that there’s nothing special about Awakeners; every Nalthian is one. That would be way too overpowered for any Nalthian to show up on Roshar and be 10th heightening during a highstorm. A lowly beggar could show up and just make an army of stone soldiers on a whim and take over Roshar in a week (slightly hyperbolic, but only slightly). At the very least, I would hope you have to be both a Nalthian and a surgebinder with a nahel bond to do that.
Maybe Azure/Vivenna is just an inspirational leader? Not everything has to be magic.
@70 Austin
Yeah, I mentioned that in an earlier comment (45). I think the most plausible explanation is the simplest one: Vivenna rallied the soldiers with her natural charisma/leadership along with the morale boost of seeing a “shardbearer” join the battle (a big thing for Rosharan soldiers). Then the soldier just used the “Felt like we had spren at our backs” phrase because that’s how Rosharan people think and talk.
soursaviour @68 re if uniforms are onesies. I had the mental image of all the soldiers having uniforms that includes socks (covered feet). They have no need for additional socks. The quartermasters would love that.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@wetlander
Thanks for looking that up. And eight is a substantial number. Bales of cloth too. I imagine she could accomplish that at the 4th Heightening when I think of everything Vashar was able to do with a little over 1000 breaths. birgit makes a good point. Stormlight is the interesting unknown when it comes to spheres and awakening quantities.
ineptmage@69
Awakened stone soldiers would be cool and a challenge to be sure for any Rosharan military force. That type of army would make great initial strides, but that was exactly the kind of challenge shard blades were designed to meet. Any initial progress would be rapidly reversed by just normal shard and plate bearers who could run with the same stamina as that army, swinging their stone hewing blades with near impunity due to their long reach and enhanced strength. Thunderclasts are a challenge for shardbearers, but still very beatable.
Whole lot to catch up on. Here we go!
@57 Carl
I do not think we know enough of what Vasher discovered and potentially trained Vivienna in to necessarily discount some ideas. I forget if it was mentioned in another person’s comment, but all it would take is Vivienna saying she is religious and wishes to do a blessing on everyone before battle. Then as each person leaves, they stop in front of her for the blessing, in which she touches the person’s shoulder, mutters the command under her breath and sends them on their way. Now maybe the scenario that occurred didn’t have the time to do that, but I feel if we have examples of Vasher doing things beyond the commands we know, and it stated in book that there are countless commands still be researched, then I think we can be open to possibilities.
Regarding the divine breath, I was taking that to mean a person who has not returned, find a way to gain a divine breath. To the best of my recollection, that is not possible. However, as mentioned, children of returned retain the transformation ability to a degree. Considering Vasher is a returned of great skill, and he and Vivienna travel together for some time, it would not be a stretch to think she has learned more skills than what she had the last time we saw her.
@61 Steven Hedge
I will say immortality from breath is a rather low thresh-hold, so that would be very attainable for Vivienna.
@62 soursavior
I agree.
@63 Carl
Vasher knows how to hide his divine breath. The same to me could be applied to regular breath. Or you could always use another trick Vasher liked to employ. Keeping chunks of breath in various items, to grab back as needed. So she could have them stored in all her items, and then pulled them all out to do her thang and then shoved them all back in.
The command relies on the intent of the person, not the language. The biggest part is having it clear in your mind. Otherwise you are just saying words. I gave an example of one way she could accomplish it. Another is if they knew the battle was coming, she could go amongst the equipment and do it before they all put it on. Actually to our knowledge as per WoB, Vasher only knows how to feed his divine breath with stormlight. He does not yet know how to power awakening with it, so it would be reasonable to conclude that Vivienna would be unable to do so as well. Each heightening requires increasing amounts of breaths to reach. Each item if awakened correctly would only require one breath. the 5th heightening is approximately 2,000 breaths. She could awaken both the shirt and pants and every single soldier of an army of 500, and still have 1,000 breaths to spare.
@65 birgit
Theoretically maybe. But at this time Vasher does not know how to use stormlight to power awakening. He can only use it to feed his divine breath so he can last a week at a time.
@69 ineptmage
Interesting theory regarding Azure’s blade! I could see it being possible.
There is a slight difference between a native nalthian and everyone else. They start out with a breath. So they start off slightly more invested than everyone else, but when they give that breath up, they are slightly less invested than everyone else in the cosmere. Not sure if that would change the things you posit, but figured it would be additional information.
@70 Austin
Good point. Sometimes the butler really did do it.
@72 AndrewHB
LOL
@74 CireNaes
Hmmmm, I am not sure it would cut through as easily as you think. I would have to re-read the scene with Renarin and Adolin fighting the thunderclast, but the blades hurt it, but it is more physical than just slicing through any old wall because of its investiture. I think the same would stand for the awakened stone soldiers. Hitting them with blades would hurt them, but it wouldn’t just cut like butter. But again, going on recollection, gotta read that scene again.
Scath @75 – Per Warbreaker, the Command must be spoken in the Awakener’s native language.
@76 Wetlandernw
Ack, my bad! Though of interest, I was picking around, and I found this interesting WoB
Tarontos (paraphrased)
If a person were tapping Connection would their language for Awakening change?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
If the Connection is strong enough then yes, otherwise no.
@74 CireNaes
You’re not wrong, but it’s going to take a very large number of shardbearers to take on one God King-level Awakener and his stone minions. And really my point is just that it can’t be so easy to convert stormlight to Breaths as just standing in a highstorm. It would make for a bad story to have that be possible in such a simple manner. In fact, my previous assessment is not even absurd enough because we already know that people not native to Nalthis can become Awakeners (just look at Hoid, who now does have a nahel bond also).
Actually, do we know anything about how Vasher gets stormlight? Like does he have to absorb it like a surgebinder before using it to fuel his Returned state or can he just drain an infused sphere directly?
Edit: Nevermind, there’s a WoB that says he can draw Investiture — but not Breath — straight from a highstorm.
@78 ineptmage
I think what might be the big limiting factor is finding a way to make stormlight “stick” as much as breaths. It also takes a whoooooooooooooole lot of breaths to advance in heightenings. So I think the awakener would first have to find a way to be able to hold stormlight in without any of it escaping. And then continually do that over enough times to get that level of heightening. Though I would still imagine there would be another problem because even our radiants can hold only so much stormlight at a time. Hmmmm.
@79 Scath
I don’t like the idea of the “fuel” of one magic system being a replacement for another. I’m fine with some rate-limiting conversion mechanism, but not straight up replacement. It could get too messy and really break some things. If you were an atium misting, could you just use stormlight to see the future? If you were an Awakener with a tank of water in a Taldain desert, could you make a Nightblood? I think the answer to these has to be no or at least “it would be very difficult” and that would be acceptable. It would get even more complicated since Nalthis and Roshar magic systems have a nearly tangible reserve of Investiture that they draw on (Breath and stormlight) whereas Sel and Scadrial have hidden reserves that magic users access.
@80 ineptmage
Short answer, it depends. Some magic systems are easier to hack than others. For instance what really powers the misting is not the metal, but preservation. The metal acts like a gateway for the power to flow through. That is why a misting can be on any planet and as long as they have the right metal (read percentages, doesn’t matter if the metal is from another planet as long as it is the correct percentage to be that metal) they can access their ability. So in that case it seems the hack would require finding a way to mimic the gate, and allow stormlight to flow through it potentially. Regarding Taldain is spoilers from the prose version so I will white those out
It isn’t water by itself that does it, but the interaction with the lichen on the sand. So you would theoretically have to breed a whoooooooooooooooleeeeeee lot of it. Couple that with the investiture is sourced from the sun, so you would also have to charge alllllllll that lichen from sitting in the sun.
And that is even assuming that is how that hack would even work.
Nalthis is relatively easy compared to the other magic systems. Sel is something entirely different from the rest due to (Elantris spoilers)
Odium shattering both shard and forcing them into the cognitive realm, which makes the power so location dependent while every other magic system is location independent due to the spiritual realm.
What it comes down to (for me) with hacking magic is how you get your hands on investiture and how you get it to power your abilities. I have included a whole host of pertinent WoB below. Apologies in advance, this will get pretty long
Brandon Sanderson
All right, so there are a few things you have to understand about cosmere magics to grok all of this.
First, is that magics can be hacked together. You’ll see more of this in the future of the cosmere, but an early one is the hack here–where you’re essentially powering Feruchemy with Allomancy. (A little more complex than that, but it seems like you get the idea.)
The piece you’re missing is the nature of a person’s Spiritual aspect. This is similar to a Platonic idea–the idea that there’s a perfect version of everyone somewhere. It’s a mix of their connections to places, people, and times with raw investiture. The soul, you might say.
(Note that over time, a person’s perception of themselves shapes their cognitive aspect as well, and the cognitive aspect can interfere with the spiritual aspect trying to make the physical aspect repair itself.) Healing in the cosmere often works by aligning your physical self with your spiritual self–making the physical regrow. More powerful forms of investiture can repair the soul as well.
However, your age is part of your Connection to places, people, and times. Your soul “knows” things, like where you were born, what investiture you are aligned with, and–yes–how old you are. When you’re healing yourself, you’re restoring yourself to a perfect state–when you’re done, everything is good. When you’re changing your age, however, you are transforming yourself to something unnatural. Against what your soul understands to be true.
So the spiritual aspect will push for a restoration to the way you should be. With this compounding hack, you’re not changing connection; it’s a purely Physical Realm change.
This dichotomy cannot remain for long. And the greater the disparity, the more pressure the spirit will exert. Ten or twenty years won’t matter much. A thousand will matter a lot. So the only way to use compounding to change your age is to store up all this extra youth in a metalmind, then be constantly tapping it to counteract the soul’s attempt to restore you to how you should be.
Yes, all of this means there are FAR more efficient means of counteracting aging than the one used by the Lord Ruler. It’s a hack, and not meant to be terribly efficient. Eventually, he wouldn’t have been able to maintain himself this way at all. Changing connection (or even involving ones Cognitive Aspect a little more) would have been far more efficient, though actively more difficult.
Though this is the point where I ping [Peter Ahlstrom] and get him to double-check all this. Once in a while, my fingers still type the wrong term in places. (See silvereye vs tineye.)
yulerule [PENDING REVIEW]
So if you were in the cosmere, and you know how it works, or how it all should work. Would you hack it like all ridiculously and like what would you Do you have a plan of action.
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Oh yeah I would. I would have two choices. I would go hide on the planet I know is safe, and ride it all out. I have those two options.
yulerule [PENDING REVIEW]
What was the second option?
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Well the second option is try to take over, right? ‘Cause I know all the secrets. I don’t know which one I would do.
yulerule [PENDING REVIEW]
Would you be able to hack it all?
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Well, would I be able to? It depends on where I am in the cosmere, and how easy it is to get a hold of some Investiture.
yulerule [PENDING REVIEW]
But once you get some initial Investiture then you go out.
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Then things start rolling. As soon as you can get one of the easy ones, it’s easy to use, transfer.
Argent [PENDING REVIEW]
Like Breath.
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yeah like Breath, or uh…
yulerule [PENDING REVIEW]
Mistborn?
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yeah, well Mistborn’s harder, but you know Breath is the easiest I’ve approached so far. Unless you kind distill it, then you’ve got the… Anyway. We won’t go there. You saw that in Secret History.
Argent [PENDING REVIEW]
Oh, oh that.
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yeah. When you strip off all kinds of identity and stuff.
Argent [PENDING REVIEW]
Connection Juice…not Connection Juice.
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Connection Juice?
Argent [PENDING REVIEW]
Yeah, that’s what we’re calling it.
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Okay, okay I suppose.
Questioner
Is Investiture universal? By that I mean, if an Allomancer got Stormlight somehow could they use that to fuel Allomancy?
Brandon Sanderson
That is always possible, so yes. But in some case it requires some quote-unquote hacking, like an AC vs a DC current or we’ve got a 120 Volt and they’ve got 240. Does that make sense? It might require– I guess hacking is the wrong term, adapters.
Argent
Would a parshman who received multiple breaths, or any other type of Investiture, be able to gain sentence or become more like listener– Kind of like mistwraith/kandra?
Brandon Sanderson
That would require some Identity changes and transformations.
Argent
So it’s not just a dump of–
Brandon Sanderson
It’s not just a dump. It’s a biological thing for them, they’ve adapted. So they’ve evolved to the point where this sort of thing– It would be like trying to power DC with AC current or the wrong voltage or something like that… I mean once you figure it out it could be an easy hack but finding out that hack it’s like– You know it’s like going back to people in the 1800’s and being like “Why don’t you guys have electricity?” *laughter*
Tsidqiyah
On Sel. It costs about 50 sacrifices to become immune to Aons. Is that number essential? Or if someone with 50 Breath was sacrificed…?
Brandon Sanderson
That number is not essential. But you would have to hack the magic system. You need that much Investiture. So, 50 peoples’ souls worth. But if you knew how to hack the magic, Breath could substitute there pretty easily.
@80 ineptmage
Oh! one more thing! Technically Nightblood is already a hacked magic system. Basically he is the result of taking Nalthis’s magic system to create a shardblade which is Rosharan.
@81,82 Scath
So a couple of things: First, I know the metal in allomancy just creates a way to access Preservation’s power, that’s why I included that in the “hidden reserve” category. And Sel is unique, you’re right; but it still doesn’t have chunks of investiture/”fuel” that you can trade around like on Nalthis and Roshar and that’s my point. Further, Sel being unique only adds even more narrative necessity for complexity in converting/”adapting” Investiture sources. I’m not sure your point about Taldain’s magic; nothing you said doesn’t fit with what I said.
Second, I’m not talking so much about the nature of the interaction of magic systems as I am the general concept that there needs to be a barrier in place so that using one to power another is not trivial. So the (hilariously dubbed) Connection Juice could be part of what I’m talking about here. Presumably, there’s some non-trivial process with which to “distill” this. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be interesting and could break some things in the Cosmere.
The AC/DC and voltage analogies ring true for me with regards to all of this, but I do find concerning the idea that once the trick is discovered, adapting one magic source to fuel another becomes trivial. Seems like one of the biggest barriers now is that most people don’t have more than one type of magic, like the Allomancer using stormlight to fuel Allomancy example. The concern here is that anyone can get Breath, though maybe this is okay because Breath is fairly finite and hard to amass in large quantities as long as other things can’t be trivially converted to Breath.
Finally, I wouldn’t say Nightblood is hacked because of the imitation of a Rosharan shardblade. The magic behind Nightblood is still Awakening and the fuel was Breaths. Nightblood is an interesting case study about magic system interaction for a different reason entirely though; Nightblood is of Endowment, but also of Ruin! (LINK)
@83 ineptmage
No problemo, sorry for repeating stuff you already knew. Didn’t know the extent of your exposure.
So I think part of the confusion when I read your post is when you say “hidden reserve”. Since it is not the metal powering it, there isn’t a hidden reserve. All the magic systems act on the same principle. They have a means to access investiture, and that investiture then fuels their abilities. Some are easier to access than others. As to Taldain, I clarified because there was an additional “step” involved potentially.
Thing is we already see what you are describing you do not want to see in compounding (the stand in a highstorm and attain 9th heightening). The pro of feruchemy is (within reason) you could tap your metal minds as much as you want and get bigger and bigger results. The con of feruchemy is that you first have to store the attribute, so there isn’t a net “gain”. Allomancy can be used all day every day as long as you have the metal for it, without any downtime. The con of Allomancy is that it reaches a limit in “strength”. It can only give you a certain level of a boost. Compounding, which is a magic hack as per Brandon, supersedes this. The con of feruchemy no longer applies. You can get that attribute all day everyday day as much as you want (within reason). Throw in hemalurgy and now theoretically anyone can do it. And that is all from one planet, not even taking into account other planet/magic systems.
Eh, I still say Nightblood is a form of magic hack because it is taking one form of magic to mimic or cause a result found in another magic system. But that’s just me.
@84 Scath
Regarding “hidden reserve,” I guess my intention here is just to differentiate between magic systems where 1.) you take Investiture into your body (Breath and Stormlight) and then use it up to do things (Awaken and Surgebind) and then you can’t do more magic without getting more Breath/Stormlight and 2.) where you do something (burn metal or draw an Aon) to access and use Investiture without really “owning” it. We’re diving into distinctions and semantics that I hadn’t intended; my real point was just that with all of the differences, I want the conversion between systems to be difficult or complicated or, at the very least, inefficient.
Yeah, I was thinking about compounding when writing some of those comments and you’re right that it’s the exact kind of thing I don’t want to be easy to do. The Lord Ruler is the perfect example of how this unchecked mechanism is over powered. And with the advent of “unkeyed” metal minds, any Allomancer can become a compounder. With the ability to create Bands of Mourning, suddenly anyone can become as powerful as the Lord Ruler with access to enough metal. Surely this will have large implications moving forward on Scadriel. The rate-limiter here is that there aren’t many Mistborn floating around any longer and so it will take a lot of people working together to fully access. A Scadriel full of Lord Rulers is not the story I would choose (though I’ve no doubt Sanderson could make it a compelling one).
Regarding Nightblood, we’re just arguing semantics at this point, but then you could say that even spren Shardblades are a hack since they are merely imitating the Honorblades. A hack to me in this context is some sort of workaround to avoid a limitation (like Vasher using stormlight to maintain the bond between his body and cognitive shadow). Like you wouldn’t call it a hack if a Coinshot saw a Windrunner flying around and was like “oh, I could fly too if I try pushing metal into the ground; hack accomplished!”
And note, I’m not trying to be argumentative here, just enjoying the discussion. I appreciate thorough explanation even if I’m already familiar with concepts. I’m 100% certain I don’t know everything (like the DC/AC analogy WoB was new for me and very interesting).
@85 ineptmage
First and foremost, no worries. No offense meant, and no offense taken.
No worries. It does seem like conversion is going to be difficult to figure out though as we discussed, once it is figured out it would open up a whole host of possibilities and potential problems. For instance I theorize that if you could get a person with the surge of transformation, and the misting ability (whether from spiking or some other means) of lets say steel (though which misting type ultimately does not matter), you could potentially have soulcasting that would never “run out”. Basically soulcast some flakes of steel. Burn the steel as a misting, but use a hack to cause it to power your soulcasting instead. Since the metal itself is not the fuel, you could theoretically get a whole lot of return for those flakes of steel. As long as you always make sure you have enough steel left to soulcast yourself more, you never have to worry about running out. But that is purely conjecture on my part.
I think as the Cosmere starts to interact little by little more overtly, and we begin to zoom out from world focused, to interplanetary focused, what was once seen as overpowered, will be mitigated by similar rises in power. For instance a fullborn is very powerful, but could there be combinations of other magics systems that could potentially rival it thereby balancing it out? Or could it become almost a nuclear race, with multiple groups all rushing to be the ones with the greatest combination for dominance. I agree, Sanderson could potentially make a wonderful story of it regardless. I mean in mistborn we do start with a group of relative “weak” characters preparing to challenge a “god” and that is one of my favorite series. Mistborn Era 4 is going to be a biggie lol.
I mean it more using a magic system to accomplish something it originally was incapable of accomplishing. So in your example a coinshot finding a way to manipulate gravity without needing to push on metal. But I agree it is going into semantics which would not benefit from over analyzing on either side.
Totally received and intended as discussion on my end as well. We are all good as far as I am concerned :)
There is already a mitigating factor on Scadrial. We’re rapidly moving to an age where everyone has some power, either inborn or purchased. Yet the powers they are obtaining are weaker in comparison to even Era 1 when they suffered 1000 years of dilution. The allo/feru combination further weakens both powers in terms of inheriting powers and potency. That’s not even considering how Trell is going to muck up the Metallic Arts. Hemalurgy ain’t doing much either. Spike yourself up to fullborn status, become Harmony’s puppet. Any combination of Investiture may be powerful but even hacks are going to have built in limitations and mitigating factors.
@87 EvilMonkey
Have you had a chance to see the new hemalurgy chart in the latest leather bound? Number of spikes might not be as much of an issue anymore….. Though getting enough lerasium to accomplish it might be a feat unto itself. Now having said that, I readily agree there is going to be some balancing factors, but what those factors may be remains to be seen.
I’ve seen it. Lerasium steals everything I know. But if you’re stealing from someone without much ability you’re only a little better than someone unpowered, easily falling prey to a squad of Hazekillers. That’s aside from the Lerasium supply. I know if I had a Lerasium bead I sure as hell ain’t making a spike out of it.
Scath@75
I believe the difficulty they were experiencing while fighting that Thunderclast was due to their lack of Plate (they manage to take off a hand and a foot, each thicker than a Phantom swinging with unenhanced strength). They end up doing quite a number on it with Hrdalm’s help. It’s plate and blade that makes a full shardbearer truly effective. Plate is the more valuable of the two in my opinion. Together, a Phantom’s advantages are seriously reduced.
@90: The Thunderclast nearly killed Adolin and Hrdalm was almost stabbed to death by a Fused. It took a Radiant to defeat the creature as nothing both Adolin and Hrdalm were doing was enough.
@Scáth, spoiler response below:
Note that per Brandon, the Moon Scepter, which Hoid stole, allows Selish magic to work outside its native geography. If I remember right.
@CireNaes: Hrdalm had Plate. In that fight, he and Adolin (who only had his Blade) were able to kill two Fused, but needed help from Renarin to finish the Thunderclast. Note that Renarin still got help from Hrdalm (using Adolin’s Blade). Thunderclasts seem to be very hard to destroy.
@91: It is also worth noting the only reason Hrdalm isn’t killed by the Fused is because Adolin had practice throwing Maya before. The only reason Adolin survives long enough for Renarin to get there is also because of Maya both appearing in less than 7 heartbeats to help him escape the Thunderclast and warning him from an oncoming Fused attack so he has time to roll away (despite having broken his leg). And by the time Renarin arrives, Adolin is pretty badly injured: had his brother not gotten there right away, he wasn’t surviving the next blow, Maya or not. So even though he isn’t a “Radiant”, Adolin got the help of a “Radiant spren” to make it through and just barely.
Adolin with his Blade and Hrdalm with his Plate were unable to defeat the creature on their own. Adolin with a Shardblade which isn’t Maya was dying fairly quickly and so was Hrdalm. Thunderclasts are indeed very hard to kill unless you are a Radiant and you are right to point out Renarin also had help.
Perhaps a group of regular full Shardbearers could kill a Thunderclast, but clearly two half-Shardbearers, one with a semi-awake Blade, weren’t anywhere near enough. Regular soldiers have no chance against the creature.
@@@@@86 Scath
You’ve found another perfect example of a potentially broken and overpowered mechanism if there are no barriers in place for conversion. Very interesting thought with a Soulcasting Misting. It brings to my mind another potential combo that I’m not even sure has a need for conversion. What if a gold Feruchemist was also a Surgebinder? Store a lot of health while letting the Stormlight heal your sickened state. Would become very powerful if it were a gold-compounding Soulcaster.
I also meant to mention one other thing regarding the “hidden reserve” categorizations. We do see at least one instance of an exception on Scadriel when a kind of “chunk” of Investiture is taken into one’s body and used to fuel Allomancy when Vin draws in the mists. So even this is more complicated than what I’ve presented.
And you’re right that as some person/people become more and more powerful others will rise to balance that, but that just leaves “normal” people as less and less relevant and I like the interplay in Sanderson’s stories between those who are “gifted” and those who aren’t. If every nation has a few hundred Lord Rulers or God Kings, what use are the spearmen?
@@@@@ 87 EvilMonkey
I agree that limitations and mitigations will happen and are necessary and that’s really my thesis of this whole conversation. I kind of like the idea you’re hinting at in that as Scadriel magi-tech advances through time, the innate power of magic users will decline to help mitigate the power boost. There’s still the issue of compounding and bands of mourning copies bringing full power back to individuals; it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Wow, lots of interesting conversation.
Sadly, I had Azure spoiled for me when reading the spoiler free review – I think because the fact that a Warbreaker character being in it was ‘common knowledge’, but it hadn’t been to me, so it was pretty obvious right from the start. I am not sure when I would have figured it out otherwise. Probably not at this point, but at some point during their journey or when her hair color changed.
I also feel like we are missing a lot of gaps – to the point where it almost feels like a cheat that Viv is suddenly so powerful and how she got involved in worldhopping when, as far as I know, she wasn’t even aware of the existence of other ‘worlds’ yet. Did she become a really great Awakener and get a bunch of Breath? Or did she figure out some way that maybe Vasher hasn’t to to the Stormlight/Breath conversion? And definitely would like to know more about the sword. It’s both unsatisfying and tantalizing ;)
@89 EvilMonkey
The chart looks epic right? Love the leatherbounds and all the extra artwork.
True the powers acquired would theoretically be weaker than naturally produced, though I think compounding gives enough that it wouldn’t be too overtly an issue. I do not feel it would be quite that weak at all. But point well made and well received regarding loss of power. Well I agree with you in so far as I am not a homicidal murderer bent on power lol. So I would much rather swallow the bead than kill people. However, since it steals all the powers, that would include allomantic as well as feruchemical. So in the long run with compounding you would get more out of lerasium by using it as a spike than as a bead in my opinion.
@90 CireNaes
Well the shardblades are about 6 feet or so long aren’t they? I kind of assumed that would be about as big as a thunderclast’s leg. It was big enough to cut through a Chasmfiend’s leg. For some reason I feel like at first that only wounded it, and it was from repeated attacks that the limbs got cut off. But I am going on a vague recollection on that, so I am probably wrong.
@92 Carl
Spoiler response to spoiler response lol
That is regarding Selish magic on Sel. It acts like a Rosetta stone. Hoid wanted it so he could use Selish magic. I have included the pertinent WoB below.
ParadoxicalZen
How exactly is the Moon Scepter linked to the Dor?
Brandon Sanderson
The Moon Scepter is– I suppose I can canonize this, now. Okay you’re getting one out of me. So the big thing about the Moon Scepter that it was– It is a Rosetta stone for the [Selish] magics. Meaning it translates them from one to another, and what the different symbols mean, does that make sense.
Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]
Are we ever going to see the Moon Scepter on screen and what it does?
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yes, you should see the Moon Scepter on screen. What it does is it works as a kind of Rosetta Stone for interpreting some of the magics.
Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]
So that’s why Hoid wanted it?
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
That’s why Hoid wanted it, yes. He’s trying to figure out how to give himself–to be able to use the magics on Sel, and that’s a key that he wanted
Aurimus_
And lastly, a cosmere point of contention. You’ve said before the Moon Scepter works as a Rosetta stone? Is this literal, as in translating one Aon to it’s MaiPon counterpart, or more metaphorical, IE allowing use of a Selish magic outside of its country?
Brandon Sanderson
The Moon Scepter does not “unlock” regional use of Selish magic, but those who wanted it believed it was a vital step in figuring this out. It’s more the first, but has implications for the second.
Questioner
Will we see the Moon Scepter again?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, I intend for you to see it again. But I’ve already said what it does, I believe. It’s a Rosetta Stone for the different symbols on [the world of] Elantris that mean different things.
Questioner
So, it’s more specific to Sel?
Brandon Sanderson
It’s specific to Sel, it’s specific to understanding the magics on Sel. It helps figure out how the different magic systems do the different things they do on Sel. So, it does have Aons along one side of it. You probably will see it again, but it will probably be in cameo. Hoid got the information he needed off of it, from that.
@94 ineptmage
Thank you! I also think a pewter allomancer with gold feruchemy could accomplish that. Pewter heals in addition to providing strength and speed. So theoretically the person could just maintain a burn of pewter, while storing health and have no ill effects. Or in the example you gave, why not a surgebinder with regrowth and feruchemical gold? We already see Renarin heal to the point of a cartoon character due to stormlight healing coupled with regrowth. He could churn out gold minds like no tomorrow like that.
There are a bunch of WoB that say the mists fueling Vin is much like surgebinding during a highstorm. Being fed investiture directly.
Well I think part of what balances that is the turn towards science fiction. I think it was Alcatraz that said what separates magic from science is who can do it. If only a few select people can do something, and it cannot be taught or given to others, then it is magic. If anyone can gain access and use it, then it is technology. For instance, a windrunner using gravitation to fly. Magic. Navani’s ship design using gravitation to fly that anyone could be trained to pilot. Science. So as these “gifts” go towards items anyone can wear/use and be regulated as such, that could be a balance to these “Lord Rulers or God Kings”. That spearman could pick up something that when used would allow them to fight a lord ruler or godking.
I agree with all your points in your discussion with EvilMonkey. I can’t wait to see it all play out!
@95 Lisamarie
Lol, tantalizing indeed.
Yes. Like I said, the two together. If Adolin had both plate and blade he likely would have prevailed on his own. BWS made it fun by separating the plate from the blade between two characters (Hrdalm and Adolin.) I know Renarin was squashed. I know it took a few chops to separate the appendages. I remember the fight, but I haven’t invested in a business model to monitize things just yet. Maybe by the next thread I’ll message Carl about his ROI to see if it’s worth the initial startup costs. Do you all remember the Thunderclasts’ reaction when Renarin entered the fray? It was scared. And for good reason if Renarin had been able to manifest his plate too. Instead he armored up a different way. Extreme healing FTW.
@97: The Thunderclast was scared of Renarin when he entered the fray, but it wasn’t previously scared of either Adolin nor Hrdalm. I don’t think Adolin with a Plate would have done much better: once cutting down the leg failed to provide the expected results, he was basically just trying to distract it from the Oathgate. The Thunderclast responded by being annoyed at him managing to evade him for so long. Even with a Plate, Adolin was still getting trashed though he would have presumably sustained less severe injuries or no injuries at all depending on how his Plate would have hold on against the hits.
Hrdalm with both Plate and Blade (Maya) wasn’t enough to kill the Thunderclast, it was Renarin who did it. Hrdalm having presumably a supporting role, not a major one in the creature’s death. What I remember is Renarin getting crushed, coming back through the leg then using his light to defeat the creature. It was very quick and it wasn’t something either Adolin or Hrdalm could have done.
Now that the conversation is likely to have moved to this week’s thread. I want to ask something that this whole interacting magic systems discussion made me think of again. It’s something that’s always bothered me and I’m sure the answer is out there somewhere, but I’m unaware of it.
Say you fill a Nicrosil metalmind with Investiture, say the Iron Feruchemical ability, while you are also filling an Aluminum metalmind with your Identity so that the Investiture in the Nicrosil metalmind is unkeyed and can be used by someone other than the original Feruchemist. Now, why can just anyone access that Investiture? Wouldn’t they have to be a Nicrosil Feruchemist (Soulbearer) to use the Nicrosil metalmind in the first place?
We have this WoB: but what “Pure Investiture” are they using to become a Nicrosil Feruchemist? This “Pure Investiture” has to be closely tied to the mechanisms or lack thereof that we’ve been discussing in this thread.
@97 CireNaes
I will have to look back because I may have misunderstood, but the reason for my responses with the thunderclast was because of ineptmage’s point about the stone lifeless from warbreaker. All I was saying is that a shardblade would not necessarily make them trivial because of how it interacted with the thunderclast. Basically a whole army of mini thunderclasts that can move and fight like men I think would be pretty impressive. Not insurmountable, but I think they would be a force to respect. LOL yeah the extreme healing scene was epic, including Renarin summoning the light to banish it. The other favorite scene I think we will be getting to eventually is when Renarin runs into the fused and smiles because he can see what is coming lol. Gotta love that kid, and seeing him truly coming into his own for a change.
@99 ineptmage
Ok, so I wrote a whole bunch of stuff out just to realize I was basically saying what you said just differently. At the end of the day there are a lot of theories, but I don’t think anyone knows exactly how it works yet. And I think Brandon is keeping that vague on purpose so it can be a reveal in the book. So pretty much I do not think we have an answer yet lol.
@ineptmage
Let’s make it worse: let your Feruchemist/Surgebinder store health in the gold metalmind while in a Highstorm. She could in principle charge any number of metalminds completely in a few minutes.
@100 Scath
Hopefully there’s something that ties into what we already know about the metallic arts, otherwise I can’t see it being particularly satisfying. Without any WoB knowledge, it honestly reads like an error or plot hole right now. I don’t understand why the characters don’t question it. Maybe I’ll reread it soon, it’s been a little while.
@101 Carl
Good point, and not just charge metalminds, but MAKE them too!
@102 ineptmage
But I thought from my recollection they did question it in the book? This involves a lot of spoilers to a lot of non stormlight books so I will white it out below:
Suit is annoyed that they only got far enough to make them unkeyed but you still need need the ability to begin with. So at the time the spikes were still needed. Wax asks Allik why not just put a bunch of them together, and Allik snarkily replies of course why didn’t they think about that. That it doesn’t work, and they haven’t figured out how to without the excisors (which we do not know what those are yet). That he explains that is why the hunters were pursuing the bands of mourning. Not only for the power, but to possibly learn how to make more.
@103 Scath
I guess I didn’t really mean Suit and co, but that’s a valid point. And I had completely forgotten the mention of excisors. So speculatively, somehow the excisors are providing this “pure investiture” that anyone can use to temporarily become a Nicrosil Ferring. I thought maybe they were Hemalurgical spikes, but maybe it’s more complicated than that. Aaaand, now I can’t wait for the next Scadriel book…
@104 ineptmage
That is one of the theories regarding those. Lol I can’t wait either!
Very late to the party, but I have to chime in:
Ineptmage @94:
I guess that I am on the other side of that argument – I don’t think that Sanderson has a particularly good track of including “normal” people and making them relevant in the long run, except for those who fit a very specific mold that popular culture has already gotten us used to – i.e. Spoiler: the female romance interests of highly-powered “superhero” men. To give him his due, he does those quite well, but everybody else either gets a power-up eventually, or slips into irrelevancy and/or dies. And it is honestly difficult to impossible to make normal people as important as super-heroes, unless those people are geniuses in their field and also have access to super-technology gadgets.
Which is why I am all for the “Batman” routine becoming more accessible to the people of the Cosmere via Investiture hacks and devices. Or even Hemalurgy, if they ever figure out how to make it equivalent to a kidney or liver donation, rather than something more damaging. I am kinda tired of people having exceptional inborn abilities automatically hogging the hero slots. And also, I want the Willshapers and the Elsecallers to finally live up to their potential of exploring the Cosmere. It seems like a cruel joke that their abilities are geared towards inter-planetary travel, but they are prevented from using them abroad by the lack of stormlight away from Roshar.
I do not think that certain overpowered device from the other series could be easily copied, if at all. I expect it to remain unique. And IMHO, using Allomancy to power surge-binding is going to impose limits similar to those that Lift is laboring under. Unless you are Hoid, that is.
Gepeto @98:
I think that a fresh, unwounded Adolin wearing an intact, fully fuelled Shardplate would have had a chance against the Thunderclast. Even more so on subsequent encounters, when he’d know what he is up against. He is an exceptional fighter, with years of experience with both Plate and Blade. Hrdalm’s Plate was already damaged, IIRC, and he just wasn’t nearly as good. IMHO a couple of full Shardbearers who knew what they were doing could deal with a single Thunderclast going forward, if they could fight one without the interference by the Fused, etc.
I also don’t think that Renarin would have fared nearly as well if he hadn’t been supercharged by Dalinar.
@106 Isilel
I get your point, but I think you misunderstand me slightly. I don’t just mean dialogue/relationships between characters and I’m not talking so much about unpowered main characters having the same relevancy/agency as powered main characters. I’m talking about the generalities of a conflict where things like leadership, logistics, risk-reward analysis, strategy, etc. all matter a great deal. On the other hand, if some people are absurdly more powerful than others, it renders the masses useless (or at least that’s my fear). If the war on the Shattered Plains, for example, had a few God King / Lord Ruler or even more powerful level combatants on each side, all of the armies would be irrelevant and it would just be a duel between the superpowered. Or let’s say only one side had those superpowered; wouldn’t be much of a war. Now those stories can be interesting too and the people on the wrong side of the power-balance can still achieve parity through some cleverness or deceit or something (era 2 spoiler: like when Suit uses the threat of the ettmetal bomb to stop Wax from using the bands of mourning); but I’m just saying I don’t want the super powerup to be so trivial that it has to be the only thing that matters because I like our heroes (and villains) to have to be concerned about a lot of things.
I do agree with you on Brandon Sanderson not having a great track record for keeping “normal humans” relevant within his books. I would however add, a majority of writers do not have good track records of doing the same unless their story is written in a low magic setting, so this isn’t restricted to Brandon specifically. It is the one reason why Adolin is usually named as the “most potential character to die” due to him being the sole “normal human” and, by definition, expendable. The narrative cannot afford us losing any single one of the “important Radiants”, so the next death of importance hangs over Adolin’s head now Elhokar has died. It can however afford to have Adolin bite the dust as there is no function he fulfills which cannot be accomplished by any of the main protagonists. Even Navani is more important to the plot with her endeavor to create new fabrials.
Dalinar, Kaladin, Shallan, Renarin, Jasnah, Lift, Venli and Szeth cannot die within the near term as the narrative needs one representative within each order to move forward. They aren’t expendable and if one or two of them may die, it won’t be until the very end of the first half and even then…
Sadly, the whole concept of fantasy, by itself, indeed makes “normal” characters irrelevant unless they are geniuses or have access to magical artifacts or are “married” to a “powerful protagonist”. I do however agree with you having characters get access to magical powers based on birth, genetic or family ties gets old rather quickly. I find the Stormlight Archive system offers some balance in the sense surgebinding is theoretically accessible to all, providing a spren chooses you, but so far, the only chosen ones have been Kholins, people around Kaladin and a handful of lucky outliers. A character such as Adolin, by being the sole member of his family not having been chosen, has about zero chances of moving up as he has already been skipped.
I recall we had this conversation during the WoR re-read. At the times, when I expressed my reluctance towards “normal humans” within fantasy, some recommended I read Codex Alera as it featured a non-magical protagonist within a magical world. It was interesting, at first, though the “non-magical” protagonist was made to also be very smart and the long loss heir of a prince and, well, eventually, he powered up. I thought it the sole proof non-magical protagonist have no future within fantasy as within the one series defined by picking up one of those to lead the narrative, the character still becomes over-powered, after a few books.
I think we will have to RAFO to determine if unwounded Plated Adolin could have single-handily defeated the Thunderclast. I think not as he would have never been able to do what Renarin did, but maybe I am wrong. I also do not think Adolin knows more how to defeat the creatures then he did before except that cutting a leg isn’t working. He can’t reproduce Renarin’s light.
@106 Isilel
Aluminum, in addition to abilities/creatures that consume investiture also go a long way to balancing things. Wax has real problems from aluminum bullets. Gold feruchemy and Pewter Allomancy cannot heal a wound while aluminum is still in them. The larkin stopped the fused in its tracks for Rysn to shoot it with a crossbow bolt, ending it.
@107 ineptmage
I think one thing to consider in these power balance issues is that in our own world we didn’t have balance either. Civilizations with better technology, or bigger armies would take over other civilizations. So too I feel in Brandon’s Cosmere. I think I mentioned earlier than Brandon has said he did not make all the magic systems to be balanced against each other. Some are just going to be stronger than others. Period. So a planet with a lord ruler potentially is going to be able to take over a planet that just has birds that bestow psychic abilities easily. I think that is why these abilities are going the way of science. It will become an arms race. Just throwing out ideas and theories. You can totally feel concerned, and want balances and checks. Not saying anyone is right or wrong. Just talking it out.
@108 Gepeto
Have you read Lies of Locke Lamora (and sequels)? I think that’s a better example of main characters without powers having to interact with those that do. It’s a great read. On the other hand, I have no idea why anyone would recommend Codex Alera for that purpose; I don’t think you should think of that as the best example or even an example of that at all.
@109 Scath
Aluminum is a good example of a limitation/challenge for most of the magic systems. You’re right that there are real world examples of unbalanced power. However, I think there are still real checks in place in our world. No, an army of spearmen aren’t going to beat a guy with one fighter jet or cruise missile. However, not just anyone can get that kind of armament by standing outside in a storm. That’s not to say that that will always be the case in the future, but just as I’m not that interested in a Cosmere story with many people trivially obtaining absurd power, I’m not much interested in a real future in which everyone can trivially get cruise missiles either.
Re: Normal people fighting. We already have Moash killing a fused using a normal spear, so it is theoretically possible. We learn in an upcoming chapter that the Wall Guard has managed to take out zero fused, though, even with archers, which seems odd. Late in the book doesn’t Jasnah take one out with pitch and fire? Those seem like pretty mundane weapons, though I suppose the damp air might make catching fire to non-Rathalas stuff difficult much of the time.
Re: Different magic systems interacting, I read Warbreaker (so I could get the background on Azure, Zahel, and Nightblood), and the differences in how the power works confuses me if they are meant to be interchangeable. Breath is not used up, apparently, being 100% recoverable from any awakened object. There is zero cost then to use it. Only the Returned seem to need to burn through it to stay alive. I am not sure how these two systems even relate.
Re: The Wall Guard accepting a woman as their leader. I think they accepted her as an exception. If Kaladin was revealed to have dark eyes later they might have still accepted him, again as an exception. It was stated that they were all lighteyed, so despite their need for more soldiers it hadn’t occurred to them to recruit any darkeyed soldiers for the Wall even though their were plenty of those in the city. Their referring to Azure as “he” is their way of accepting her without breaking cultural norms and having to accept women in general. If they decided they wanted to keep a darkeyed Kaladin they probably would have pretended he was a lighteyes with an eye condition it was impolite to speak about.
@110 ineptmage
Lol, funny you should bring up Lies of Locke Lamora. That is a novel I feel has a Deus Ex Machina. I will white out why to avoid spoilers.
The magic system is for the most part not explained throughout the book except to say how overwhelmingly powerful it is, though for some reason it is never used to rule the world, just rent out mercenaries. The grand skills of the greyking in the end are nothing without the huge sums of money he gained to give one mage to accomplish all his goals for him. The amazing plans of Locke are nothing before the magic, until the chance that the magic happens to rely on your true name and the mage never considered a person who was orphaned in a plague city would change his name. Also relying on a city of criminals never thinking of changing their names at all. So the book didn’t sit well with me, but I understand it is very popular and a lot of people drew a lot of enjoyment from it. I am just huge into magic systems, and for me it wasn’t enjoyable. To each their own of course.
Carrying the examples to logical conclusions, nukes and bombs would be analogous. A person with the right know how can make horrifying bombs from chemicals found in any house hold. Dirty bombs that can be made and can take out whole cities are a terrifying reality. It is a race between the things technology affords us, and the restrictions we place on it for progress versus safety.
If Tolkien is the origin of fantasy of course non-powered hobbits are the real heroes, not fighters or wizards. American superhero comics have worlds where normal people don’t matter, but good fantasy isn’t just boring fights between superheroes that have no real consequences (at least not for the fighters, no one seems to care if they destroy the city).
It’s all about checks and balances. If one lives in a magical world and wishes to tangle with the big boys (and girls) one must have an edge that the biggies do not posess. Otherwise either the magic sucks or its super unrealistic. I personally enjoyed Codex Alera because of this. I mean, how unrealistic would it have been if The Lord Ruler was taken down by a small group of unpowered individuals with no special qualities? That’s not believable considering TLR’s skill set.
Btw, I’m not sure Addie is slated for the knife either as he provides perspective to our superheroes. No other character is as well-placed as he to provide that purpose. His dad’s closest confidant, favorite nephew to the master technologist, married to the head Lightweaver, best friend to the head Windrunner, brother to the top Truthwatcher, cousin to a queen and personable enough to rub elbows with any emerging Surgebinders regardless of their rank. If he goes, it’s likely that it won’t be to climax SA5 at earliest. That’s at least my impression.
Double post (again. Sorry.)
@114 EvilMonkey
Well keeping all things equal, over time the abilities in Codex Alera do ramp up. The highlords, and king in their prime get to ridiculous levels. I am probably mis rememebering the spelling of the name, but Kalare for one. I do not want to post spoilers, but the volcano. How can a normal person check that? The answer is they didn’t. They needed (whited out): the king to do it.
You also forgot that Adolin is also Highprince Kholin lol.
@110: I did not read Locke Lamora. I have heard about, but I wasn’t sure it were a series I’d enjoy. I am currently reading Inda by Sherwood Smith which features mostly non-magical character though the world has little magic. The main protagonist is some sort of battle geniuses and now within the fourth book, I am starting to think it is getting old. As always, I am drifting more towards preferring the… side characters. It’s been a thing with me and fantasy books, I always end up tiring of the main protagonists which is why I prefer stories where there is more than one main protagonists.
As for Codex Alera, it was fine. The first book was OK. The second, third and fourth book were good. It starts to go downhill with the fifth book and the sixth is very average. The main protagonist spends half the series being powerless and needs to compensate with his wits. That was the interesting part, but then he gets OP and becomes boring.
@114: I think the answer for power ramp up, at least for me, would be… team work… Have not one character single-handily defeat the antagonist, but have a team of many characters do it together. A bit like the ending of WoT where everyone had a role. Yes, Rand fights the Dark One, but he would have never succeeded without the rest of the team. It wasn’t just *his* victory.
I am hoping SA will take a similar road and the ending will not be Dalinar doing some magic mumbo-jumbo to solve all issues.
Adolin being a Highprince is relatively irrelevant. The narrative has moved away from Alethi politics and it’s likely him being the Highprince will not be engaged within the plot. Anyway, Adolin is a wildcard. Brandon said he was the one character with a wide open future who could still evolve in various ways. I guess that’s what makes him slightly less expendable, the fact he is evolving outside the plan.
Well even in Codex Alera teamwork plays a factor in the endgame. Spoiler below:
Tavi didn’t take on the big bad by himself, he needed Kitai’s help. And if his family (Bernard, Isana) and the high lords had not protected the valley then beating the big bad wouldn’t have mattered for all the people would have been dead.
Either way, sometimes side characters can be more fun in certain circumstances than our main protagonists so I understand the preference in some cases. a
Yeah, but how it all unfolds was lack-luster, at least to me it was. Also…
I found it completely implausible for pregnant Kitai to go about and slay opponents as if she weren’t pregnant. Pregnancy is not fun, it isn’t a walk in the park and you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist not to forget any hit to the abdomen could injure and/or kill the baby…
Anyway, it still was a far-cry from having each one of the WoT character have a defined role within the big battle.
Side-characters tend to be more interesting for some readers because their growth is less contrived by the narrative. It isn’t pure happenstance many readers tend to favor those nor is it odd each fandom has its string of side-characters whom are as popular if not more popular than the actual protagonists.
@113 birgit
American superhero comics (or at least the mainstream ones by DC and Marvel) are full of normal people who are incredibly important. They are all the secondary/background characters who drive the heroes; the ones who are friends, family, acquaintances, coworkers. Examples are almost everyone in a Spiderman comic (Aunt May, JJJ and others at the Daily Bugle or people at school), all of Superman’s friends at the Daily Planet (Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson, etc.), Batman has Alfred and the police (Commissioner Gordon).
I can agree that First Lord’s Fury wasn’t the best entry in the series. I still liked it but not as much as previous installments so I can understand if it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Haven’t read Locke Lamora yet, probably need to pick it up one day. As for WOT, each of those characters with a definite role in the LB had many books of development dedicated to establishing their role. As a consequence, people who would have been side characters in a different series are main characters just due to sheer narrative weight. Probably not fair to expect that same sort of world- and character-building in a series approximately a third the size of WOT. Eh. It’s whatever though.
@121: I found the second to fourth book were the best. Starting in book 5, I felt Crassus and Maximus were criminally under-used. The last book was heavily military oriented, a large part of it being dedicated towards moving an army around. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I have come to realize parts dedicated towards logistic, if not spiced with inter-character drama, bore me. So I was bored often within this book.
This is why WoT is unique and stands alone in its genre… It cannot be replaced. It allowed for so many characters to have a spotlight and while some disliked it for this reason, I loved it for it. Of course, very few series can be as ambitious as WoT, especially now long-lasting series are running out of fashion.
There’s a terminology thing happening in cross-Cosmere magic discussion that I thought I’d mention. It involves Cosmere spoilers, so whited out below:
As I understand it, “Investiture” would translate into less-poetic English as “magical energy that you can use for things.” In computing and philosophy (both areas I have studied) you talk about “levels of abstraction.” Specific would be “the mists” in Mistborn, a specific source of power for allomancy. Another such source would be “burning tin,” a different specific source for a specific type of allomancy. Up one level of abstraction is “Preservation’s power,” which is the source for all (Scadrian) allomancy and which comprises both the mists (used directly) and burning metal. Up one level from that is “Investiture,” which is defined as power from any Shard of Adonalsium that can be used to do anything. So “generic Investiture” could be used to power any allomantic power, or Surgebinding, or Awakening, or for that matter Forgery if off Sel. (On the planet Sel there’s a huge amount of available Investiture in the form of Dominion and Devotion’s corpses stuffed into the Cognitive Realm, as the Dor, so other power sources would probably not be needed.)
As Brandon says in the quoted material above, the presence of Investiture (magical energy) doesn’t grant anyone the specific magical power needed to use it, it’s like a battery with no electric-powered device attached. You have to “plug it into” a power like feruchemy for it to do anything.
So a metalmind with unlocked generic Investiture could power anything, but you have to have the ability first, either from your own spiritual DNA, or via some other means (e. g. hemalurgy).
@ineptmage
There’s no difference between making and charging a metalmind. If you charge any random piece of metal it becomes a metalmind. I’m not sure what you mean.
@Gepeto
I disagree. I will bet you a nickel at least one of those dies fairly soon. Why can’t one member of any order die and be replaced? They’re in a major war and this is Brandon Sanderson. Of course people will die. Eshonai died, Gepeto!
This is not a fair criticism. Eshonai and Venli and Malata and Szeth and Ym and Lift are not any of those things. Of course people end up interacting with the protagonists–someone who didn’t would not be part of the story, which naturally centers around our protagonists! That’s like arguing that only people who know the Kholins become Highprince, and it’s so unfair ….
If you’re looking for nonmagical protagonists in a magical setting, Poul Anderson’s Operation Chaos or Heinlein’s “Magic, Inc.” might be better examples of non-powered protagonists, if you can stand their not-of-our-timeness. (Of course I’m middle-aged, so they are of my time.)
@birgit
The first time I read LOTR I was unthinkingly sure that the Aragorn parts were the main story and everything else was side business that could be skipped. Part of me continues to think so.
@123: I know there is a major war going on and death would be a realistic outcome! But SA has relied on such a small cast of main protagonists, losing one of the big three before the end of the first half seems highly unlikely. After WoK, I would have told you, of course, Dalinar would die, but now he has become the key to defeating Odium and saving Roshar. I will not die, he cannot die. Killing either one of Shallan or Kaladin seems…. you don’t kill your main protagonists. Not unless you have other well-established main protagonists to fill in the holes and, right now, Brandon doesn’t have those.
Jasnah, Renarin and Lift will be main protagonists within the second half… This knowledge alone should be enough to protect them from death as they have *yet* to have a narrative. Mind, without this knowledge, I’d totally think either Jasnah or Renarin could die, but we do know.
Eshonai was a minor character when she died and not the representative of any order. We *thought* she would be the Willshaper, but turns out Venli took her place. We * thought* she’d survive the fall: she didn’t. The other characters aren’t within a similar position: we *know* they are standing in for their orders. They each were part of Dalinar’s ten, the one presaged to save the world. The ten will not die!
So why can’t one member die and be replaced? Well, I would say because those characters have already been identified as the important 10 characters. And while they each are important, only Dalinar, Kaladin and Shallan are main protagonists. Venli/Szeth still have their story to tell and will very much be alive when it happens, so they can’t die before. The other ones are the main protagonists of the second half, so they cannot die either.
Hence all whom are left to *die* are: Bridge 4, Adolin, Moash, any of the Highprinces and potentially Navani though with her fabrial knowledge, she’s too valuable to kill.
I am willing to bet you an hypothetical nickel the most important character to die within book four will be someone from Bridge 4. Say Teft dies.
For the rest, it wasn’t a criticism but an observation… A majority of the new Radiants were taken in the pool of people around Dalinar/Kaladin (Dalinar, Jasnah Elhokar, Renarin, Teft, Lopen, Skar, Drehy potentially). Lift was chosen by the Nightwatcher because she liked her, because she is *special*. Ym, for reasons still unknown, was chosen by two orders, the others, yeah you are right are outliers. Except Szeth, he was chosen by Nale himself… Eshonai/Venli were chosen because TImbre no longer trusted humans. Malata is an outlier as far as we can tell. I didn’t mean to say it was unfair, but surgebinding isn’t completely fair either: wanting to become a Radiant isn’t enough. Wanting to be a Radiant and having the right personality is not enough. There is an element of choosing which needs to happen on which you have no control over and if you are an outlier, your chances of being picked are smaller. So it isn’t an entirely fair system where everyone can achieve it providing their work hard enough.
Thanks for the recommendation. Indeed, those are old-school.
Can people whom do not know the Kholins become Highprince? Is there really anyone they do not know whom could realistically become Highprince? I mean, they know everyone of import in Alethkar…
Is anyone going to be surprised if I say I never liked Aragorn? I always had a soft spot for Boromir…
Ineptmage @107:
To be honest, I have been wondering about the usefulness of the masses of simple soldiers on a Desolation-era battlefield since we first saw Dalinar’s vision of Aharietam. And Kaladin’s track record against the Parshendi combined with the Wall Guard’s track record against the Fused only confirmed my feeling that they were, essentially, just useless fodder.
Yes, Moash did kill a Fused, but only due to a combination of his being familiar with the capabilities of a Windrunner, her arrogant complacency and him being pretty much suicidal. Others won’t get such opportunities.
To be fair to Sanderson, all fantasies that try to include what are essentially super-powers alongside medieval/antiquity warfare really struggle with justification for inclusion of normal soldiers, period-appropriate fortifications, etc., which super-powered people then proceed to destroy in minutes/hours, etc. And I never yet found one that entirely succeeded. In the end, all this stuff is just there to demonstrate how bad-ass the protagonists and the villains are, as well as to allow the author to crib from historical records of military campaigns and battles, rather then invent their own. Which I, too, deplore, but them’s the breaks. And I do think that it is too late to make normal medieval weaponry relevant in the Cosmere.
All of this is not to say that they won’t come up with some “equalizers” – in fact, it seems to me that the history of the Desolations kinda proves that creating a few thousands of super-powered people to defend the whole world against equally super-powered attackers ultimately led to failure and defeat, because the defenders couldn’t be everywhere and it is so much easier to destroy infrastructure than to protect it. In fact, I expect that along with Nightblood, anti-Odium side’s edge this time around will come from quickly adapting new tactics, new weapons, new magitech, etc., and otherwise being more flexible than the Fused, who are masters of the previous era style of warfare, but would be slow to adapt to new realities, IMHO. In this sense, losing the leadership of the Heralds may have been a blessing in disguise too, as I suspect that they used to be similarly hampered.
The first step, of course, is for the Coalition to be informed of the amazing properties of aluminium, then people with Soulcasting must learn to produce it in quantities and then somebody must figure out how to make explosives. That’s what would give normal people a chance to fend off the Fused. Even with the Everstorm, they’d try to avoid repeated painful deaths, I am sure. If the Wallguard had alumium arrows with explosive tips, then their fight against the Fused wouldn’t have been so one-sided.
“I’m talking about the generalities of a conflict where things like leadership, logistics, risk-reward analysis, strategy, etc. all matter a great deal.”
I am with you there – I used to think prior to Oathbringer that we’d get it from Adolin’s PoV once he became King. Of course, I also expected Kaladin to step more into the background after hogging the limelight in both WoK and WoR, but apparently he’d be quite prominent again in Book 4 (sigh), so it looks like super-powered heroics are going to be the name of the game yet again. Here is to hoping that things change in volume 5!
However, I am also looking at things from the PoV of stopping Odium from freeing himself and devastating Roshar and from this angle – I want there to be combinations and interactions of different magic systems, Investitures, etc. I want Vasher/Vivenna to find out how to Awaken with stormlight, though hopefully with drawbacks, I want Radiants to figure out ways to maintain their access to surges away from Rosharan system, I want magi-tech to explode and give normal people new options, etc. Because, clearly, whatever purist approaches had been tried in the past, they were not enough.
Concerning the events on Scadrial in era 2: Spoilers:
Yes, the aluminium bullets were an inconvenience to Wax and Wayne, but it didn’t stop them from killing scores of people armed with them. And it doesn’t change the fact that they accomplished most of what they did due to being Twinborn and people without those super-powers would have failed. So, I am all for proliferation of powers, through whatever means, rather than keeping them rare and those few who possess them becoming pretty much unstoppable juggernauts as a result. I was very disappointed to find out when I first read “The Alloy of Law” that 16% of everybody becoming an Allomancer due to the mist-snapping in “Hero of Ages” didn’t become the new norm in Era 2…
As to the Bands of Mourning, aren’t you greatly overstating their power? They let Marasi and Wax bring one person back from mortal wounds, defeat two-score of enemies and bring down an aircraft before becoming mostly exhausted. That’s hardly earth-shaking, and we don’t even know if they can be re-filled by anybody other than their creator, who is, let’s not forget, a sliver of Preservation. I doubt very much that anybody else could duplicate them.
Birgit @113:
Yes, it always amused me that all the many Tolkien imitators never chose to copy _that_ part of LoTR! Opting for Arthurian archetypes, usually with bonus magical powers as the main protagonists instead. But, to be fair, you need to have a very specific kind of world for somebody like the hobbits to be in position to save the day.
Carl @123:
While I didn’t doubt Frodo being the main character when I first read LoTR, I also kept waiting for Glorfindel and Arwen to show up again and do something amazing, heh. And also I expected to eventually find out in detail how exactly Elendil and Gil-galad were able to overcome the Ring-wearing Sauron during their last fight…
RogerPavelle @120:
You said it yourself – normal people close to the comic super-heroes exist to motivate and support them. They are never in position to take on the super-villains by themselves, even though they may provide an assisst once in a blue moon. And other normals are just faceless mooks, whose horrific deaths by the thousand matter less than a super-hero’s sense of moral superiority, which wouldn’t allow them to dispose of a mass-murdering super-villain once and for all. Not to mention technological super-heroes hogging the technologies that could change the world for the better in the name of preserving their own advantage. Thankfully, it looks like the Cosmere is going in the opposite direction.
@many:
I really didn’t think that either Codex Alera – which I thought was average and rather cliché-ridden, or Locke Lamora actually presented plausible examples of what Ineptmage was talking about. Nor did WoT after a certain point, nor did Erickson’s and Bakker’s series. They all tried to justify the importance of normal armies and it was all quite implausible in the end.
@124: I would argue Moash was the exception and not the rule: Hradlm was nearly killed when attacked by two Fused and he was wearing Plate. I think Moash got lucky because the Fused failed to predict he’d ditch his Shardblade in favor of a spear. He had the element of surprise going on for him. Later in the book, we see Adolin try to fight one Fused and getting stabbed almost immediately. Surely there are no arguments to be made as to whom is the best fighter in between Adolin and Moash, yet Adolin was unable to fend against one.
I also think it has been implied normal humans will indeed be nothing more than meat grinder within the Desolation. They might be able to fight the regular Parshendis and Odium’s human allies, but it has been clear since the beginning the focus would not be on them. The focus of the series definitely is on the Radiants which has caused some readers to root for Adolin to stay “normal” while encouraging others to hope he wouldn’t just to ensure he’d stay relevant within the narrative.
@124: On the matter of Kaladin’s upcoming page time, I’d argue Brandon words were highly subjective. What is “big” and is what Brandon considering “big” truly “big” in the eyes of his readers? If I look at the things he did say about Oathbringer, I find his perception does not always match mine. For instance, he did say there would be a lot of Kaladin in Oathbringer and yet it was his shortest book ever. He did say there would be moderate amounts of Jasnah, Navani and Adolin as if all three characters had equal page time. Yet, Adolin has, by far, the strongest presence of the three, Navani not being around more than within previous books or not significantly so. He did say Adolin was getting the “same page time” as in previous books and yet OB was his shortest book so far.
Hence, when Brandon says to expect Kaladin to have a “big” arc, I take it and I leave some out. As a character, Kaladin is not longer refreshing enough to own the largest focus as his inner struggles aren’t distinctive enough from the ones he previously had. Given Kaladin has been involved with the Parshendis and given the next book is focusing on them, it seems logical Kaladin’s “big role” might have to do with them. If this is the case, then it may mean a lot of third person’s perspective, a strong presence, but not necessarily one which translate into 100K worth of words.
For the rest, I think Brandon is aware how over-powered he has currently made his Radiants and how this has evacuated all tension from their fight. Was there really anyone withholding his/her breath when Renarin tackled the Thunderclast? So I am hoping odds will insert themselves back into the narrative and the Radiants limitations will become more apparent. This being said, I was hoping the lack of stormlight would be it, so I was really annoyed when Dalinar was given the power to recharge spheres at will, but we’ll see how it goes down.
Codex Alera is indeed cliche, but each books has its main protagonists go through narrative arcs which differs from the previous ones. My hopes for book 4 are for Brandon to…. surprise me.
Re the idea of weapons that can kill the Fused–Jasnah demonstrated that a Molotov cocktail could do it. Surely Navani’s crew can make a Gravitation-based jar thrower? Soulcasters can definitely make oil. Of course the Fused would just return in the next Everstorm. (What was their life like on Braize, that they didn’t recover any mental health at all in millennia of not dying?)
Actually the character I’m hoping to see more of books 4 and 5 is Mraize, precisely because he’s the one we know the least about.
@126: I am hoping book 4 will conclude the narrative arc featuring the Ghostbloods. If I am right, then it means we should be getting more Mraize.
The first excerpt from book 4 is Lirin though. He isn’t a character I was hoping to get a voice, but let’s see how it goes. Seems like Brandon wants to use him to portray life inside conquered Alethkar. The Kaladin coming back to his family sounds interesting.
Gepeto @128:
Concerning that new excerpt: Spoilers:
Argh! So, Kaladin did leave his parents back in Heartstone _for a year_, where everybody knew that they had a Radiant son?! I guess that we’ll be treated to the completely forseeble and avoidable plot point of his family getting captured/killed, to give him more torment and heartbreak… sigh. It also seems odd that after all the talk about impending famine in OB, there is still enough food to share with the refugeés and the Fused don’t forbid it. I can only faintly hope that maybe this chapter takes place before the one-year gap?
Carl @127:
The issue with killing the Fused is that you need to damage them more quickly than they can heal. So, a Molotov probably wouldn’t be enough. IIRC, Jasnah completely enclosed them with that pitch and also created lots of fire to ignite it all at once. And I assume that the Wallguard archery was so ineffective against the flying Fused because they used the same trick that Kaladin did – painted their shields with the Reverse Lashings and drew all the arrows there. Only missiles made of aluminium would be imprevious to this. Also, piercing wounds can’t hurt them enough to kill unless somebody gets lucky enough to hit them in the gemhearts. Explosive tips would help with that. Normal people’s best hope in fight against the Fused is not to let them close.
I somehow don’t think that Braize is conducive to regaining mental health, even for the Fused. I do wonder why Odium keeps returning the insane ones, instead of just taking his Investiture back from them, as he threatened during the Battle of Thaylenah, and giving it to new recruits. So, maybe it wasn’t just the deaths that drove the mad ones crazy? Maybe it was such a long sojourn on Braize that broke them… And Odium will begin replacing the defective Fused as soon as he finds worthy new people.
@129: Why mark it as spoilers? I posted the thread within this week’s discussion, but here it is for those not having found it or those who missed it.
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/386-planet-comicon/
So I’ll mark it in spoilers too, just in case…
It was already known Kaladin was going back to his family in Heartstone within book 4. Brandon had already told us about it, so this excerpt isn’t much of a surprise, at least for me who had knew about it. Do you remember the post-WoR discussions with respect to Kaladin’s homecoming? How many readers were arguing his parents would be dead, beaten, captive, how Kaladin would be miserable, imprisoned and so on? Well, I argued against it and it was one aspect of Oathbringer I actually got right. Authors can only hit on the same character’s head so long before it gets old and repetitive.
So how will Lirin fit wihin the narrative? I think he will fit in having Kaladin accepting the fourth oath. I mean, Lirin isn’t going to become a main character, this likely is his sole chapter, but there obviously is an unfinished story here.
The chapter probably happens one year later, so Kaladin took a whole year before he came back, probably due to Alethkar being over-run by the Fused. He had to figure out how to get there in the first place, so it seems he got through Herdaz hiding within refuges. Smart and not uninteresting. I don’t think the narrative will make Kaladin miserable… Brandon knows when too much is too much. I think.
Without giving spoilers, can someone fill me in on what kind of “excerpts” you all are talking about? I am afraid to google for fear of spoilers. I remember when Harry Potter five had an excerpt released, and it was from the end of the book .Are these spoilery things my delicate soul should avoid like the plague? Arrrgh! I was enojying this read along.
Brandon did a reading at Planet Com yesterday. He read the preliminary beginning of a chapter presumably to be featured within the first ones. Think the Kaladin excerpt we had prior to OB: it is similar. It gives you about the same level of spoilers this chapter gives us. Of course, any excerpt can give us information on what to expect: the viewpoint character by itself is probably a spoiler.
Each reader’s sensitivity to spoilers being personal, it is hard to know if you would find this one too spoiler-y. I would however think if you were fine with the Kaladin excerpt, released prior to OB, then you are likely to be fine with this one, providing hearing a new character viewpoint doesn’t bother you.
Thank you, Gepeto. I didn’t read the series until after Oathbringer was published, so I am unfamiliar with how this usually goes. I am aware that there were preview chapters, but those were from the first part of the book so that’s all well and good. I am not sure where excerpts will fit in. Was there a lot of them released last time around?
The very first Oathbringer’s excerpt released was Kaladin’s homecoming chapter. The excerpt ended up at Kaladin entering the manor house: we didn’t get to read him meeting up with his parents again. We however saw him coming back home, being late for the Everstorm, seeing his hometown wrecked and stepping into the manor fearing for the worst.
Then, we had the first two flashbacks from Dalinar. Two additional ones were released within Unfettered II, but the official version was slightly tweaked.
The Eshonai prologue was released early.
We had the Ellista interlude and I think it was the Kaza one. I am unsure here, I did not read those excerpts prior to OB. I don’t usually care much for the interludes, so I wasn’t in an urge to read them.
We had one very small excerpt from Adolin which came very late, so not long before the actual release.
From memory, this is about it. No excerpt were released featuring Shallan’s character, nothing leaked on her arc, so it was a complete surprise to read it in OB and to see how big it actually was. Nothing was released outside Part 1 very early chapters except interludes.
I think it is up to every reader to decide whether he/she wants to read them. I personally jump on everything I get my hands on as speculating is half the fun of waiting for the next book. What can we expect this time around? We can expect Brandon to release about the same number of full chapters (5 if my memory is right) and some partial chapters (2 here). We can expect those excerpt not to be the final product, so changes MAY happen. I am utterly convinced the early Dalinar chapters were changed because of the comments readers had on them…
This being said, Brandon never released material late in the book now that contains game changing spoilers. The nature of spoilers those chapters contain were (in the case of Oathbringer): Kaladin is late for the Everstorm, two of the interlude characters, the prologue, young Dalinar being bestial and Adolin thinking about horses which, for a long time, was rumored to be an actual flashback by a fan who misunderstood the content of Brandon’s readings. Needless to say how excited I was over this news though I warned many people this was hearsay and the poor fan meant well, but might not have gotten the right information. Those who read Unfettered II found out about Evi’s name which Alice warned was diminishing the impact of a “moment”. I purchased Unfettered II the moment I knew it contains SA3 chapters, so I read them months before the warning, but spoiler sensitive readers were probably best to avoid.
Whether or not this is too much spoiler is personal to each reader. Nothing is known on whether or not Brandon wants to do the weekly reading again. It was a replenishing success last time, but it may be Part 1 of Rhythm of War won’t be written in a format which will make it possible.
@@@@@125. Isilel
I was referring to the comment that normal people don’t matter in comics, which I find to be incredibly incorrect (at least in the ones I have read and enjoyed). They help show that, behind the mask, the heroes are still people. The same is true in the Cosmere, where Kaladin constantly strives to protect those around him (normal soldiers, Bridge 4, his parents, etc.), Adolin has girl trouble, Shallan has her mental and family issues, and so forth.
@135: In the examples you have listed, the normal people exist to give value and to enhance the main protagonists issues. They aren’t relevant on their own. Adolin is the closest we got to a “normal character”, but he is outside the planning, so his overall role isn’t to carry on part of the narrative. The ones carrying the narrative and actively resolving the conflict are the characters having the magical powers. They are the ones having internal struggles and, well, a narrative.
Not the “normal people”. Adolin is the closest we got to a “normal person” getting a narrative, but it doesn’t come anywhere near close to what the “magical characters” are getting.
@134 Gepeto
Thanks! That’s basically what I was wondering about. I don’t mind teasers from the beginning of stories, but don’t want something important from later (looking at you, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). Cover art is almost the worst for this, because it is often depicting some dramatic end scene– but fortunately I always forget to look at it until I am done with a book. I am often surprised at just how spoilery some of my dust jackets would have been if I’d just been paying attention.
I didn’t read the preview chapters from the Harry Potter books. I wasn’t enough of a fan not to be perfectly content in just waiting for the next book to come out. So, I am unable to compare, but I can say, without giving away spoilers, what kind of spoilers you can expect out of the current excerpt.
The preview chapter is the viewpoint of a character whom never had any before. So if you choose to read it, you will find out who. For some readers, that’s enough of a spoiler. There are no indications whether or not this is a one time chapter or if this character will start playing a bigger role. I am leaning towards the former and not the later, but I could be dead wrong about this.
The preview chapter is presumably not an interlude and is linked to one of the main character. If you read it, you will know what one of the main characters will be doing early in book 4. If you read Brandon’s communication on SA4, this isn’t a spoiler as he did give it away, but if you didn’t, then it is one.
The preview chapter tells us some previously very very minor character will become more important: that’s a spoiler though it doesn’t say what to expect.
The preview chapter is most certainly one of the first ones within the next book. Somewhere in Part 1 I would wager, but I can’t guarantee.
So it doesn’t give away a lot, it’s mostly a teaser, but I can’t say it isn’t giving away anything. It is about 7 paragraphs long.
@123 Carl
Regarding “making” metalminds. I meant that a Soulcaster could create the metal itself to then be made into a metal mind. Gold out of thin air, literally.
@125 Isilel
Regarding the potency of the Bands of Mourning. Don’t forget that it makes the user a compounder of all 16 metals. And that it gave Wax so much Allomantic power that he could push on trace metals in rocks. But really it’s the compounding that makes it so potentially OP.
About non-magical charcter in series about charcters with magical powers, How about Sokka in Avatar?
Catch up time!
@120 Roger Pavelle
I agree!
@125 Isilel
I thought it was already explained why simple soldiers are needed. Shardbearers cannot hold ground. You need numbers to occupy and hold. So I do not feel normal people have become trivial.
Regarding Era 2
Those were untrained thugs given aluminum armaments meant as a distraction. Wax is also very skilled not only his his allomantic abilities, but in shooting. Get a equally skilled “normal” individual with the right equipment and I maintain Wax could be taken out.
As to the Bands of Mourning, Wax comments on since the Bands gives him the ability to be a compounder, all he would need to do is burn all the metals to refill all the stores he used, including the ones allowing him to have the powers. So as long as even a little is left in the Bands, everything can be refilled. Hence brokenness lol.
So all those normal guy villians that give the hero a run for their money don’t count? There are plenty of villians in various rogue galleries (superman’s, spider-man’s, x-men) that are all normal, and all nearly defeat the heroes. So normal people are not just fodder in comic books.
@127 Carl
I agree, Mraize would be a fun character to learn more about! Him and his Babsk.
@129 Isilel
Regarding new except:
Lirin walks around pretty openly but is not recognized by any fused. The only people who would know Kaladin is linked to Lirin and his family, would be the immediate people at Hearthstone. Now could Roshone out of malice sell out Lirin? Sure! But at least on some level, those in the know would also have to know it would be counter to their own interests to sell out Lirin to the fused to be used against Kaladin. So I do not foresee that being a plot point, unless there is a battle while they escape, and Lirin or Hesina become a causalty. But if all that time passed without the fused using him against Kaladin, i do not personally see why that would suddenly change now.
Actually Jasnah soulcasted a sheet of oil that the fused flew into, and then soulcasted a spark to ignite the oil. Which as Carl said, would function the same had a pot of oil been thrown at the fused, and then ignited with an arrow.
Scáth @141:
If you want to subdue normal civilians and incorporate them into your realm, sure, the normal soldiers can “hold the ground”. But if you only want to use your super-powered troops just to kill and destroy, then they are currently useless, as exemplified by the Wallguard against the flying Fused. Which is why the cycle of Desolations was so very damaging.
As Scadrial era 2:
I don’t remember Wax saying/thinking that he could re-fill the Bands, – weren’t they given to kandra to puzzle out how to do it, among other things? But even if he did, I am quite confident that we’ll find out that he was mistaken.
But I wouldn’t find it too overpowered if Vivenna became a Radiant and used surges alongside Awakening, or if a misting/ferring did or a Radiant somehow became one.
@142 Isilel
And yet the Fused wanted to hold and incorporate Kholinar which is why they didn’t lead the attack on the city, the normal parshendi did. The parshendi are just as normal as a normal person, yet the Fused relied on an entire army of them to take the city. The fused supplemented the force, but they were not the primary means. Just like shardbearers break enemy lines, but it is the normal troops that push and hold them. Same would stand with the Radiants. So normal people aren’t trivial in the battle for Roshar.
As for Scadrial era 2
Please refer to page 420 of Bands of Mourning. It says it right there. I am glad you are quite confident. I am just as confident based on that quote that confirms what I said is the case. Guess we will have to wait till the Lost Metal to be sure?
@143 Scath
I agree that it seems the (era 2 spoilers) Bands could just be refilled with compounding. And I don’t think they were given to the kandra to try to figure them out, but basically given to the kandra to take them off the board in any potential North vs. South Scadriel conflict. Because of that, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if the Bands are not a big part of the story moving forward, especially since they already had one end-of-book save-the-day moment. I think it’s more likely we’ll see developments with ettmetal, the excisors, and how ordinary people become Feruchemists (especially Nicrosil Ferrings) without hemalurgy. As well as the further culture revelations of S. Scadrians.
@144 ineptmage
Don’t have anything really to add except that I agree with all you wrote. Just wish the Lost Metal wasn’t so far off in coming. Though with the way Brandon churns out his books, that is the very definition of first world problems lol
Ineptmage, Scáth, I guess that we have reached the „agree to disagree“ stage. My positions are that:
The Fused didn‘t need the parshmen to conquer Kholinar and slaughter it‘s inhabitants. They could have easily done that by themselves, since human soldiers were quite helpless against them. However, they chose to involve the parshmen because they wanted to mold and educate them in certain ways, which included teaching them to fight and making them feel invested in and co-responsible for the victories against the humans. I‘d also like to point out that some of the singer forms are considerably more powerful than a normal human and therefore would have more chance against the surge-binders, even with the just currently available weaponry. The other reason why the Parshmen were useful was that the Fused had decided to spare the human inhabitants for the time being and normal soldiers are necessary to keep the conquered population in it‘s place. Odium, of course, needs to spread hatred, so mass warfare is helpful to him.
Speaking of powerful artifacts, I see no point in introducing one into the narrative and then never using it again. That’s just bad writing, IMHO. Nor do I see the point in such an artifact without clear limitations. Consider Nightblood, for example – it is possibly the most powerful item in the Cosmere to-date. But it has clear drawbacks, which prevent it‘s constant use and make the wielder only resort to it when it truly counts. Yet also, it is becoming increasingly clear that Vasher, one of the greatest Awakeners who has ever lived and it‘s co-creator was wrong about so many things concerning it. If somebody like him could be mistaken about something like this, why should we take the person who has only handled another artifact briefly for some kind of ultimate authority on it?
And the same thing applies to Magics from the different worlds – since we were told that they can be combined and even substitute for each other, somewhat, I expect to see it on-page and not just with Hoid. I really hope that Vivenna becomes a Radiant eventually and that Vasher figures out how to Awaken with stormlight, though it should be much more difficult and less effective than with Breath. Otherwise, why were they even included in SA as people from another world? There should just exist soft limits on people‘s ability to obtain and simultaneously use different magics. Just like our ability to multi-task iRL is limited and varies individually.
Do you recall the number of fused that were present at the battle of Kholinar? I do think we saw one Thunderclast, and a bunch of fused but I do not recall the numbers you are implying. Could you reference where you saw the fused overwhelm all of Kholinar by themselves? From what I recall of the scenes, they fly in, do a quick attack, and then retreat before the wall guard is able to organize a counter attack. That sounds like guerrilla warfare to me. Also from what we see of Dalinar’s visions, there are most definitely normal people and “normal” parsh around fighting. That does not sound trivial there either. Finally as I said we have it mentioned twice in the book how powered individuals cannot hold terrain. They will eventually be overwhelmed because they cannot be everywhere at once. You need a standing army. I feel there are plenty of instances, and references that show normal people are not trivial, but I guess all we can do at this point is RAFO.
Well in the real world we have had powerful “artifacts” introduced, used once, and then by mutual agreement shelved them to hopefully never be used again. Nuclear bombs. Everyone’s got them, but thankfully no one has actively used them against another country in years. So unless real life is bad writing, what was done in the book bands of mourning is quite accurate. Below are possible spoilers for Warbreaker, and Spoilers for Mistborn Era 2 whited out
It is confirmed that nightblood is more invested than the bands, so I do agree it looks to be currently the most powerful item in the cosmere so far. Vasher did not make Nightblood. His wife did. Vasher helped, and they made a mistake while making it trying to emulate another magic system. That is why Vasher killed her. To prevent her from making more. Wax is shown in Bands of Mourning to have a greater understanding of allomancy/feruchemy and their interaction. Considering his own abilities, as well as dealing with Miles Hundredlives, he made it a personal goal to understand it as much as possible. Two of the Kandra was impressed by his level of knowledge when they explained the mission to him. The Kandra then goes into further detail regarding their research into the items, increasing his understanding. Allik, a southern scadrialan that uses medallions everyday, is impressed by how much Wax understands when he explaining the medallions.
So yes, based on all those reasons I would rate Wax an expert in the matter. You are of course entitled to disagree. I would love however if you could provide references with page numbers that cause you to believe as you do. That way I can better understand how you came to the conclusions you have. Not belittling your thoughts. Just seeking to understand them better.
Brandon has confirmed that the Stormlight Archive will largely be self contained. The time when we will see interactions between worlds will come up more in Era 4 I believe of Mistborn. So it seems you have some more time to wait.
So yep, looks like agree to disagree.
@138 Gepeto:
Many thanks, again. I was just startled to see this stuff emerge so soon. I thought I’d be safe for at least another year! I decided that I’ll have to trust that no late book spoilers will be released so soon, and read the thing because its contents are bound to come up at some point somewhere for me to see as long as I frequent any sites about SA. I can always bolt later if released excerpts start to feel like one of those movie trailers that go too long and too far.
Re: Normal people killing the Fused.
Another example of this might be Song taking out the Voidbringer with her goose-feather -fletched arrow back in Part 2. Kaladin chased off flying Voidbringers, so that sounds like Fused, not Parshendi,
@148: The first excerpt from Oathbringer was released three years before the book was published! Over a year before Brandon started actively writing Oathbringer, so there is no guaranteed safe periods. The only late book stuff I ever seen Brandon released where the Glimmers of Radiance for Words of Radiance and those were only random sentences taken outside their context. Impossible to know what they meant.
The only downside of the excerpts is they tend to have fans speculate on what they mean and that can be spoiler-y. I mean, part of the fun in reading books is not knowing what to expect. If you have read all the theories, then there is less chances of being surprised. Chances of being disappointed also increases.
@148 Nightheron
Good point about Song! Totally forgot about that!
Azure’s scars could be kerztian clan markings. She might have been to taldain and joined them.
@151 airsicklowlander
There must be an interesting tale–that hopefully will be covered in the next Warbreaker book–about those scars. There is at least a ten year gap between Warbreaker and Oathbringer (probably more, I forget when Zahel was made Adolin’s Swordmaster). After finishing Warbreaker, my first disturbing thought on the scars was that Vivenna must have run into Tonks Fah again *shudders*.