Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, we wandered the conference chamber with Adolin, ending with Shallan’s entrance. This week, we pick up in the middle of the same sentence from Shallan’s perspective, and watch Shallan and Dalinar drop their respective bombshells.
This reread will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. The index for this reread can be found here, and more Stormlight Archive goodies are indexed here. Click on through to join the discussion.
Chapter 38: The Silent Storm
Point of View: Shallan
Setting: Elhokar’s conference chamber at the Shattered Plains
Symbology: Pattern, Shalash, Battar
IN WHICH Shallan relays her grievous news as she tells Dalinar and Navani the whole story, with the alteration of having set the ship on fire instead of Soulcasting it to water; she makes the case for pardoning her men, and Dalinar agrees; they turn to Adolin, and Shallan forgets all the overt advantages of the match in contemplation of his grin; Shallan is frank with Dalinar regarding her status, and Dalinar agrees to maintain the causal, for now; Shallan uses Jasnah’s notes to sort out the various people in attendance; clearly, the political alignments have shifted, and the major factions become clear; Shallan concentrates on understanding the subtext of the meeting, until she becomes the subject of it; she recalls her Lightweaving and deflects the attempts to bid on her presence by claiming an offer from Sebarial; he “confirms” it by pretending a family relationship; Dalinar declares his intention to make peace with the Parshendi, either by parley or by a final defeat; Sadeas tries to needle Dalinar, but it only works on Adolin; Dalinar reveals the message just received from the Parshendi, but points out the similarity to events six years ago; Shallan finishes her duties of telling Elhokar about Jasnah and obtaining the writ of pardon for her men, then prepares to depart with Sebarial to his warcamp.
Quote of the Week:
“Um…” Was she? Oh, right. She took the wine. “Yes?”
“Adolin Kholin,” he said. “I am sorry to hear of your hardships. We will need to speak to the king of his sister. I can spare you that task, if I might go in your place.”
“Thank you,” Shallan said. “But I would prefer to see him myself.”
“Of course,” Adolin said. “As for our… involvement. It did make a lot more sense when you were Jasnah’s ward, didn’t it?”
“Probably.”
“Though, now that you’re here, perhaps we should go for a walk and just see how things feel.”
“I like to walk,” Shallan said. Stupid! Quick, say something witty. “Um. Your hair is nice.”
A part of her—the part trained by Tyn—groaned.
“My hair?” Adolin said, touching it.
“Yes,” Shallan said, trying to get her sluggish brain working again. “Blond hair isn’t often seen in Jah Keved.”
“Some people see it as a mark of my bloodline being impure.”
“Funny. They say the same about me because of my hair.” She smiled at him. That seemed the right move, since he smiled back. Her verbal recovery hadn’t been the deftest of her career, but she couldn’t be doing too poorly, so long as he was smiling.
Oh, you two. Stop it. You’re so cute. ::eyeroll::
Commentary: This chapter has way too much stuff in it. Where to start? I like the way this chapter begins with the exact same words (as spoken) that ended the previous chapter. I also like the way Shallan discovers that, even though she had grieved for Jasnah over the previous several weeks, she finds it painful all over again as she is required to burden someone else with her knowledge. It strikes me that this is the first time she has told anyone of her experience, barring a brief mention to Tvlakv & Co. that she had been shipwrecked. Now she has to tell it to the people most likely to be pained by it, and in public. Ouch.
Navani doesn’t take it well. When Shallan says she set the ship on fire, Navani blames her for Jasnah’s death, because it’s simply unthinkable that Jasnah could actually have been murdered. Poor Navani; it’s going to take her a while to reconcile herself to this one. I can’t help wondering how she’ll react when Jasnah shows up, alive and kicking. Probably with a welcoming slap for having put her through this torment.
It’s fascinating to see everyone we’ve come to know here on the Plains through Shallan’s eyes, as she connects Jasnah’s notes and her own expectations with the physical realities of the people in this room. Navani is an older, motherly version of Jasnah. Dalinar is intimidating; he also looks like the only one in the room who knows anything about combat, he is bruised, and his face is “a tad unfortunate.” Heh. The other highprinces are, apparently, readily identifiable from Jasnah’s descriptions, but her information on alliances is acutely outdated.
As it turns out, there are three factions in the room: the Kholin group, the Sadeas-Aladar-Ruthar group, and “the peacemakers” (Hatham, Roion, Vamah, Thanadal, and Bethab) who are maintaining some kind of neutrality between the other two. And here is the reason for the chapter title, as Shallan observes Dalinar and Sadeas having a quiet stare-down:
The two watched each other, Dalinar with a neutral expression, Sadeas with a faint smile. It seemed innocent enough until you saw their eyes. Locked on to one another, rarely blinking.
There was a storm in this room. A silent one.
Uh-huh.
So the meeting, though ostensibly about the Assassin, is mostly a political exercise, with the Kholin and Sadeas factions each trying to sway the neutral highprinces to their side. It becomes clear that much of the friction comes, not from Elhokar’s rules themselves, but from whether or not the highprinces are willing to accept his authority to set rules.
Then there’s Sebarial. He’s the Snark Faction all by himself, and I like him. I can see why he’d be annoying to the other highprinces, but I like him anyway. Or maybe because… In any case, he and Shallan are a perfect fit for the situation; her brand of repartee matches his sense of humor. “It could be worse. I could be boring as well as expensive.” Heh.
It was startling to realize that all of the Alethi assume Szeth is still working for the Parshendi. They have no reason to think otherwise, of course, but we’ve known better for so long it was a shock. That assumption makes the timing look less like a coincidence and more like a sinister plot when Dalinar reveals that, the same day as the assassination attempt, he received a message from the Parshendi asking to discuss the possibility of peace. It’s sad to realize just how true Roion’s words are, though the basis is inaccurate:
“Maybe they’re desperate,” Roion said, hunkering down in his chair. “One faction among them sues for peace while the other does whatever it can to destroy us.”
(Sad face.)
So Dalinar reveals his plan to obtain peace with the Parshendi: whether by treaty or by conquest, he’s going to finish this war. Oddly, he also reveals in so many words that Adolin is out to win everyone else’s Shards via dueling. I wonder why?
Stormwatch: Yup. Same day.
Sprenspotting: Pattern is hiding on Shallan’s dress, looking like part of the fabric, and Adolin draws angerspren when Sadeas tries to taunt Dalinar about the Tower betrayal. That’s it. Everyone else must be keeping their emotions under control.
Ars Arcanum: Lightweaving alert! Notice how Shallan, while presumably displaying a certain amount of outward Illusion, also consciously uses the image she’d drawn earlier as a focus for her speech and actions when she becomes the center of attention.
Heraldic Symbolism: Once again, there are multiple reasons for Shalash to grace this chapter. Just to name a few, we see Shallan, Lightweaving, artistry, and lies. Pick your favorite. Battar is a little trickier, but I’d hazard a guess that she is here because of Jasnah—and because ironically, while Shallan is explaining to Navani how Jasnah is inarguably dead, the Herald of Elsecallers may be a subtle clue that Jasnah is instead merely… elsewhere.
Words of Radiants: This week’s epigraph concerns the Windrunners, sort of. Actually, I have no idea what to say about it, so I’m just going to quote it, and we’ll hash it out in the comments.
Now, as the Windrunners were thus engaged, arose the event which has hitherto been referenced: namely, that discovery of some wicked thing of eminence, though whether it be some rogueries among the Radiants’ adherents or of some external origin, Avena would not suggest.
—From Words of Radiance, chapter 38, page 6
“…Avena would not suggest.” Grrr. I want to know, Avena! It’s worth noting that this comes from the same page in the (in-world) book as a later epigraph, so maybe we’ll touch on it again then. In any case, this is clearly referring to “the event” that triggered the Recreance.
Shipping Wars: See QOTW. It’s a good thing they don’t continue in this vein, or I’m not sure I’d like this ship at all. So… yay? I would, however, like to point out something I’d never noted before:
Dalinar nodded slowly. “We will maintain the causal for now,” he said. “The reason I agreed to it in the first place still stands—I want Adolin to be seen as unavailable to those who would manipulate him for political gain. If you can somehow persuade me, Brightness Navani, and of course the lad himself, we can progress the causal to a full betrothal.
So it rather looks like a whole lot of people have a whole lot of different reasons for this causal. It makes me feel sorry for Adolin: he’s the hapless rope in a many-sided tug-of-war for power and influence, and most of the time he’s only faintly aware of it.
Just Sayin’: Two interesting tidbits, today.
Weren’t they enemies? She’d read that they often squabbled over lands. Well, that was obviously a broken stone, for they seemed united as they regarded Dalinar.
From context, it seems that “a broken stone” refers to something presumed to be true but which turns out to be dead wrong. I wonder what the Shin think of that saying.
Going along with last week’s mild curses, we have Sebarial asking, “Dalinar, what in Damnation’s eleventh name are you on about?” Now I want to know: why does the Almighty have ten names, but Damnation has eleven? Speculate!
There. I left out way too much, because this is a lot of chapter. Use the comments, please, because it’s all good stuff. That ought to keep us busy until next week, when we return to the Davar estate for another flashback involving grim feasts and alarming confrontations.
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader. She would like to take this opportunity to remind you all to do your reading for the Hugo voting (if you’re a WorldCon member), and encourage you all to become WorldCon members (and do the reading) if you aren’t. Team Sanderson intends to be present in force, and if you come too, please look for Wetlander at Registration. She’d love to meet you in person.
Personally, I’m with you on liking the Shallan/Adolin pairing. Despite the evidence that people use to support Shallan/Kaladin, I still see this one as being the better match.
I read Sebarial’s line as being blustery. He emphasizes his profanity by referring to an eleventh name instead of a tenth. Maybe Damnation only has the one name, so he doubles up on the profanity.
Nice recap, as always. As an office drone, it shocks me that Brandon can devote two chapters to a staff meeting and keep it interesting.
I like Sebarial. He reminds me strongly of Breeze at times. But more on that after their carriage ride.
Again with the hair. :-) So it’s socially acceptable to comment upon it, not just think about it.
As cute as Adolin is, his reaction to learning about the death of his cousin is a little… missing? Its all about “oh, look! Pretty girl.” I like him, but upon reflection, it strikes me as odd.
Tor.com: Not sure yet how I feel about the overall new design. However, I do love being able to spell check within the comment box! That is win.
Maybe Damnation has 11 names just so it’s not 10, which is the big number in this series. Maybe a reflection on that idea that it’s unholy to be a dark reflection of a holy number (like how dare Damnation be that close, yet also different from the Almighty’s number).
Argh that epigraph. Even more frustrating when later we see Shallan reading them, and learn that in context they aren’t much better.
Sebarial is fun. He needs to be stamped with ‘handle with care’ – his reactions are unpredictable and unorthodox. I loved the relationship and bantering between Shallan and him. But of course, I may just like him simply because he came with Dalinar towards the end when others did not.
@3
My memory is a bit rusty but how well did Adolin know Jasnah? He clearly has had some contact but how much? I have about a thousand cousins. There are four or five that I would be pretty devastated to lose but the rest are just people I met once or twice long ago and while sad, wouldn’t distract me much from engaging with my beautiful new romantic interest.
This chapter introduces Sebarial, an unusual and rather mysterious figure. He presents himself as a jester at that meeting of the high princes and king. We learn subsequently that he is a very clever person who has figured out how to best profit from the war against the Parshendi without any risk to himself. The mystery is most evident near the end of the book when he and his mistress, Paloma, calmly sup and read on that exposed plateau while the strange, powerful storm keeps getting stronger. It’s as if they expected the storm and knew what would happen. Perhaps they, too, are world-hoppers. They seem friendly enough, but his name gives me pause. ‘Sebarial’ is easily rearranged to yield ‘base liar’. Perhaps, it’s just coincidence, however.
I’ve always read that as “water under the bridge,” i.e. that they may have squabbled in the past, but that their opposition to Dalanar was strong enough to overcome their past differences.
I like how you say when, and not if, Jasnah pops back up. And it’s definitely going to be a big entrance, likely with a “For Feminism!” battle cry.
tor.com: There might be a bug in this new look. I clicked “check for New Comments” and the last two comments just disappeared.
@Xaladin. I think you’re right. I tried posting twice, and the second time it just logged me out. Oh well, we’ve all dealt with growing pains before. I like the new lay out myself.
Adolin and Shallan both commenting on their respective hair color was simply adorable, especially since the whole exchange happened just a few feet away from Dalinar. How I would have loved to read his reaction to his son and the new girl both babbling around like shy little children about something as insignificant as hair… So cute, cute, cute, cute.
As for the chapter itself, it raised a few questions concerning the casual.
1) Why did Jasnah push for the union to begin with? It seems she wanted to tie her new found Radiant to her family by marrying her to one of her cousin (and it would have solve Shallan’s family issues), but why Adolin and not Renarin? Surely it would have been easier to justify the union of a minor scion of a destitute house to the second house of a powerful house as opposed to the first son and heir… Shallan asked this very same question early on in WoR, I but I have found Jasnah’s answer evasive at best.
2) Why does Navani suddenly want Adolin to marry? Back in WoK, she held a different discourse. She claimed Adolin should enjoy his youth and have fun courting girls. She did not seem in a hurry to find him a bride and yet Jasnah claims her mother had long since wanted to see him wed… So what’s up wih Navani? Why does she want Adolin married to her daughter’s ward? Why was she so happy to lash onto the idea?
3) Why is Dalinar suddenly afraid his son would fall prey to some woman wanting to manipulate him? Back in WoK, he was adamant he would not impose anyone on his son. He claimed the boy would marry the woman his heart chooses, so why this sudden change of heart? He has always refuse to engage Adolin into anything formal, so why now? What happened?
4) Why does everyone want Adolin to marry? He is still very young… what is the urgency? Sure, Alethi marry young, but Dalinar himself married in his late twenties and Jasnah did not even marry… So just asking…
I clicked “Check for New Comments” and the one I was writing disappeared.
The comments disappeared for me, too. But, there is the favorite button we were all asking for, so, YAY!
Sorry to pollute the post, but anyone knows how to click on “community” as before? I liked to have all the recent topics of discussion listed….
Gepeto @15
Pollute away. We need to discover the capabilities of this website upgrade. I don’t have a specific answer to your question, but you may want to consider setting up an account (go black, it’s easy) to see if some of the features you like reappear. Even so, I don’t see “community” now.
See, I thought that Navani’s frustration over the burning of the ship was because she KNEW about Jasnah’s powers in some way. She grills Shallan in “what happened when you *think* you saw her die” (emphasis mine). She says that Jasnah was unconscious AFTER Shallan says that she was stabbed through the heart. If Navani knew of Jasnah’s powers, then setting fire to the ship would have, in truth, murdered Jasnah where a dagger through the heart (apparently) had not. If Shallan had not lied, if she had said that she had Soulcasted the ship, I wonder if Navani could have told her that Jasnah was not dead.
I really want to make sense of this epigraph, but it isn’t happening. Sounds like Avena is high in the Windrunner bureaucracy and might have known what would cause the KRs to eventually forsake their oaths and spren. The chapter 84 epigraph (when decoded) tells us there is a secret to destroying the KRs and Taravangian almost certainly knows what it is. These two bits of info seem oddly convergent. Perhaps, as suggested by KingOCarrotFlowers on reddit, human-bonding spren can also be corrupted by Odium.
@many – I’d suggest that when you have an issue with the new site and comment on it here, flag it so that the moderators will see it more quickly. I flagged Xaladin’s comment @10, but there seem to be a lot of them. As jta068 says, growing pains…
Zodda @2 – But staff meetings are always so exciting!! Uh… aren’t they? (I remember a certain project where my boss and I would entertain ourselves at the bi-weekly meeting waiting for one particular coworker to misuse his chosen word of the day… Yeah. Staff meetings. I don’t miss those.)
wingracer @6 – I’m sure they knew each other fairly well, but she is, after all, eleven years the elder. By the time he grew up enough to be a moderately interesting human, she was already delving into her studies. The difference between 34 and 23 isn’t so huge, but she hasn’t been to the Plains much lately, and the difference between 26 and 15 is huge. :)
STBLST @7 – Hmmm. I wouldn’t have pegged Sebarial for already-a-world-hopper, but he is in many ways totally out of place in Alethkar. So… it could be, I suppose. Except that everyone here knows him, which they shouldn’t unless he’s grown up here. I think.
Gepeto @12 – off the top of my head, I can think of several easy reasons Jasnah would have chosen Adolin rather than Renarin for the causal. Adolin is the older of the two, and she may even think of Renarin as “too young to marry” – being, as she is, fifteen years older than him. She knows Shallan is growing into a Radiant; that could be a particular advantage to someone in Adolin’s position as the next Kholin highprince and third in line to the throne. She may still be hoping that Renarin will opt for the ardentia, and doesn’t want anything to stop him. My best guess, personally, is that she’s just rather dismissive of Renarin due to both his youth and his disabilities, and it doesn’t really occur to her that he might be an option.
However… as for Navani, and perhaps Jasnah as well, Dalinar’s reason given in this chapter is a powerful argument: Adolin needs to be “unavailable” to keep him from being used as a political pawn. This is only now important, because it’s only now that Dalinar is taking a political approach to the situation on the Plains. Up until the last few months, it’s been all a big war game, but things are coming to a head and politics is a much bigger incentive than it has been. At least, that’s my understanding. Considering that Adolin’s last girlfriend turns out to be working with the “Patriots” (i.e. Graves & Co., who are trying to assassinate the king) I don’t think Dalinar’s caution is unfounded! Of course, the fact that she’s still one of Dalinar’s clerks is even more problematic, but that’s another subject.
@19: Are Adolin and Jasnah’s age canonized precisely? Adolin mentions he received his Plate on his 16th birthday, 7 years pass in WoK, but in WoR he states people would think it the end of the world if he moves pass his 23rd birthday without a bride, which implies it has not come to pass yet… So either Adolin is rounding up the years in WoK or Brandon changed his mind on his age (he did change his mind on Elhokar’s eye color for example) or I am completely misinterpreting the last quote. Confusing. As for Jasnah, I have always had mid-thirties in my head, but I do not recall where it was mentioned.
In any advent, I agree the age difference between the two of them is large enough to assume they had little adult to adult relationship. Jasnah does not seem the kind of person to be overly interested in children, so chances of her paying much interest to young Adolin and Renarin as slim to none.
As for the rest, I’d like to add everyone, except Navani, had assumed the worst happened to Jasnah, so the news of her death may not have come as such a surprise to Adolin.
Your arguments, concerning Jasnah choosing Adolin over Renarin, do make sense. I myself tend to see Renarin as an over-grown teenager, very young looking, especially when compared to Kaladin who looks older (well in my personal book he looks older than his 20 years of age). However, I wished Jasnah has answered the question more fully when asked.
What bothers me with Dalinar’s argument for agreeing to the casual is it differs widely from his previous stand. Back in WoK, Dalinar hardly seemed interested in whom his son is dating. He paid absolutely no attention to his eldest’s love life, quite willing to let him go forward up until he settles himself. Seeing him suddenly turn into an over-protective father sternly lecturing Shallan on how he AND Navani had to approve of her before they move into something more formal was startling. It makes me wonder what exactly happened with Danlan… Didn’t he think his son could have been manipulated before? I understand he has changed his game, but still… something must have triggered this change in his behavior.
Alice, in your comments you noted “If you can somehow persuade me, Brightness Navani, and of course the lad himself, we can progress the causal to a full betrothal.”
I would say that by the end of WoR, Shallan had persuaded Dalinar, Navani and Adolin that the casual should proceed to a full betrothal.
I think Jasnah would have been proud of how Shallan handled herself during this conference. She took Jasnah’s lesson of the appearance of power to heart during the conference.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
(aka the musespren)
(note to moderator. Is there some way to change the spacing so that every time I hit the return button, the text does not skip a line)
Testing to see if I can comment here.
On the side note about Jasnah choosing Adolin for Shallan… Renarin is much closer to her in terms of age than Adolin (not that I am rooting for such a ship as I cannot see two more unfitting characters than Shallan and Renarin, but I wonder about the thoughts behind it all)… In our world, the age difference between the two would be frown on (well not if they were both older, but early twenties man dating an under-aged teenager…). In book, I cannot read this difference and I tend to see Shallan/Renarin/Adolin/Kaladin as all being roughly the same age, but I keep wondering why Brandon made them so far apart… The story could have hold itself together if Shallan had been 2 years older and Adolin two years younger.
@20 – I think it’s safe to round 6.5+ up to 7 without stretching anything. Especially if he is getting close to that 7, it’s eas to call it 7. I’ve been saying, “married for ten years,” since January, but the anniversary is later this month.
As for Jasnah, WOK, Ch 3, states that she is 34. “Jasnah was only thirty-four years old…”
Okay I can comment but now everyone has covered the interesting stuff:). Thanks everyone. But I will go on record favoring Shallan/Adolin. I do think they complement each other.
Also, I’m glad you brought up their ages. I’d always assumed that Kaladin was older then Adolin, which made bridgeboy belittling but not malicious.
Now, it’s a little less bothersome, since it’s accurate that he was a bridge carrier and a younger male in comparison. Adolin saw a young bridge carrier playing at soldier, just as a child would. I don’t know why I imagined Kaladin as a 35 year old.
Mods
Is there a login time-out (have to log-in again after X minutes of inactivity)?
Thanks!
Maewest – Welcome! Hang around and join in! We’ve all promised to play nice today. ;)
RanchoUnicorno @26 – I have a vague notion that in WoK Prime, Kaladin was older? Not sure – and not sure it matters. He doesn’t act 20, in some ways, though; he’s too somber and curmudgeonly.
FWIW, ages at this point are (give or take a few months)
Jasnah: 34
Elhokar: 27
Adolin: 23
Kaladin: 20
Renarin: 19
Shallan: 17
Kaladin’s birthday is late in the year (month 7, 8, or 9), and Shallan’s is the end of the 4th month. We don’t know about any of the others.
Also for what it’s worth, the way I read Adolin’s comment about his age is that his 23rd birthday has come and gone, and he’s *gasp!* unmarried, so now he’s a menace!!! *gasp* It’s one of those things that’s hard to say without vocal inflections. And with the arrogance of youth, he refers to Jasnah as “running about into her middle years” at 34. Hmph, I say. Whippersnapper.
And get off my lawn. Hmph.
I was logged in. Writing a comment, previewed comment, made changes, hit post.
Comment was eaten and I was booted off Tor.com. :-(
Comment redo & shortened:
Amaran: Is he a widower? Otherwise why did Adolin not call him out for being a hypocrite when Amaran basically said: don’t emulate your cousin by not marrying.
And my 4 year old is close to one of his 15 year old cousins. But we will see how that relationship develops as they grow up.
Hi everyone, thanks for your patience, and especially thanks for reporting the issues you’re experiencing with the new site design. We’re collecting all of these comments so the developers can take a look and hopefully come up with a fix soon.
@26: Like Wetlandernw said above, Kaladin doesn’t often act his age – he’s usually acting somewhere above it or below it. It also doesn’t help that Kaladin is a very natural leader, which can seem weird on someone as young as he is (even if, historically, that’s not that weird if you look at influential leaders).
When Jasnah made the offer of the causal, it was advanced quickly because of Navani right? Maybe that was part of why Adolin was chosen and not Renarin. While Jasnah probably doesn’t know too much about Renarin, I could see Navani deciding the last thing Renarin needed was that. Or maybe she thought that having something already in place might be better for both Adolin and Renarin: it’s true Adolin went through women quickly, maybe Navani always worried one of them might end up in a situation similar to what she experienced between Gavilar and Dalinar? Just some minor speculation on my part.
Wow, Elhokar is 27? I’ve been thinking of him as older than that.
I love this chapter. It’s fun to see the character interactions from someone else’s point of view and Shallan is very observant. I can’t believe that Sadeas can get away with the things he says to Dalinar in this chapter.
The Flag feature might also be broken. I flagged my own comment #10 , and Wetlander also flagged it, but there is no way to tell. EDIT: I am forced to add that the new torDOTcom is nearly impossible to navigate. I click on “series” and I have to do a search to find this one, and the search automatically turns up “most relevant” first, so I have to search again to find the newest. Also, the page changes when I least expect it to, even if I didn’t click anything.
Bellaberry @33: Elhokar is about 30 in earth years, if that helps.
Have to say, I can think of two reasons a warrior society would push men to marry younger than it pushes women.
1) Higher mortality rate. While men with shardplate or protected by large numbers of guards are less at risk, men in general in a warrior society risk dying young. By marrying earlier, they decrease the chances they’ll die without an heir.
2) With a significant percentage of men dying, pressuring men to marry younger while allowing women to put it off till later helps even the numbers.
As to Dalinar suddenly seeming interested in his son’s marriage prospects, Shallan is a more serious marriage prospect because of the official standing. She’s also someone Dalinar knows far less about than the other women his son’s been involved with, who seem to have all been part of the group of nobles or their close associates he deals with regularly. He probably knew a great deal more about them than he does about Shallan.
Besides that, the politics have changed. Alliances–and potential heirs–are much more dangerous issues than they were a few months ago.
On the hair issue, different cultures have different rules. I once lived in a country where the ultimate rudeness was to get someones ethnic background wrong. But, it was perfectly polite to ask someone what it was.
There were 35 comments, but now when I click Check for New Comments there are only 30. And I have to log in again all the time.
Arrrgh – clicked reply and lost the comment I’d typed (and got logged out to boot) – twice now. I notice that someone else had commented while I was typing so maybe that’s a factor, although the second time that comment is not showing up. Third time’s a charm.
Anyways …
I don’t think Adolin is completely unaware of the various ways he’s being tugged upon with respect to the casual. I suspect he just considers that “normal”, which for Alethi society it probably is. In the same vein, I think the reason that Dalinar gives publicly for supporting the casual might not be the full reason. He’s becoming better at the political game and not saying exactly what he’s thinking and planning. The reason he states is one that the other highprinces will understand and expect, and therefore won’t have any special reason to sabotage the relationship. (Not that they need a reason.)
3 Braid_Tug Regarding the hair comments being acceptable, Shallan says many things during her interactions with Adolin which are NOT socially acceptable, but he finds this refreshing. To extrapolate Alethi social mores based on Shallan might be misleading at best. ;)
@AndrewHB
if you use shift-return it should create a new line
w/o a paragraph break
@24: Your explanation makes sense: I do tend to round-up the ages of my children. Thanks for the quote on Jasnah. I couldn’t recall if I had read this or assume it.
@25: Kaladin acts and looks much older than his true age: most people are surprised to learn he is only 20. At first, Dalinar thought he was dealing with an older man, but when he got a good look at Kaladin, from up close, he notices he was a young man. Kaladin also is very mature on many fronts, though his true age shines on several occasions. I thus do not think Adolin, from the top of his own 23 years of age, would look at Kaladin and think “this is a child….” As for Adolin, he is being repetitively described as looking “youthful” by many observers.
@28: I am holding on to that quote about Adolin’s birthday. I think it can be read both ways. I just think it strange Dalinar (and everyone else for that matter) keep referring to Adolin as “boy”, “lad”, “child” or “youth”. It gives us a false impression on his age as the descriptive are hard to pin-point on a 23 years old, but would make sense on a 20 years old. So either Adolin looks younger (may be possible, fair haired male tend to retain their boyish look longer) or he becomes a man when he marries….. Come to think of it, Dalinar calls Elhokar “boy” as well….. Having a hard time seeing the kids grow up Dalinar?
@32: Navani’s attitude changed in between books regarding the casual, but she seemed keen on marrying her nephew to a smart women and Adolin’s pick have been, so far, vapid. So it could be she sees the boy as “dumb” as he has no scholar mind and Navani frowns on that and thus wished for him to marry a scholar…
@35: Shallan is not a serious prospect… She is barely of high rank enough to even talk to Adolin… She is way below his social status and Dalinar is hesitant because of it. Adolin has had many serious prospects in the past, but all failed for unknown reasons…
WRT why Jasnah picked Adolin for the causal, it could just be that she thought Shallan would prefer Adolin to Renarin. Remember, she was very worried that Shallan would disapprove of the causal in the first place.
I suspect that eleven is considered unlucky on Roshar in much the same way thirteen is here.
I now have to come back to this post to see if anyone else has commented, right? Is there a feature somewhere so I don’t have to do this? Hopefully the programmers have this on their list and I just need to be patient.
Testing to see if the suggestion @39 works.
Yippie. It does.Now I only have to remember
AndrewB
aka the musespren
@@@@@ Several, One thing to remember about age on Roshar is that the local year is longer. Here are the characters ages in Earth years:
Jasnah: 46
Elhokar: 37
Adolin: 31
Kaladin: 27
Renarin: 26
Shallan: 23
@44: Not the same story at all if they are nearing on 30… One of the main theme of SA is the famous “coming of age”, which only works on young characters, not to mention their maturity level just does not fit these ages.
I have indeed heard of the year thing on Roshar, but your calculations seem way off. In any advent, I do not recall if Brandon ever confirmed it translated in equivalent physical growth on the characters. Even with the proper calculations, it ages them way too much.
This is one of the quirks on SA that unnerves me the most… why is it even there? Any person reading the book will associate the characters to their book age which fits their psychological development and maturity level… Almost nobody, except those dwelling on the fandom, will even know about the rotation on Roshar being different than Earth so why bother? I just do not get the purpose… In any advent, I tend to simply ignore this and continue picturing Kaladin as a 20 years guy and not a 23-27 years old one. It may not be the right attitude, but aging them in such way just do not work for me.
crapaflapnasti @44 – Do you have a citation for that? The only thing I could find on a quick search was Brandon saying Kaladin would be somewhere about 23 in an equivalent passage of Earth time.
@46 Am I the only one seriously disturbed by this? Would anyone describe a 26 years old as “youthful”? Would 15-16 years old Tien still be years short for puberty? Would anyone think of Shallan as a young teenager if she were, physically, 19 years of age? Would 23 years old Kaladin look too young for up-close? Would 22 years old Renarin still look like a teenager?
I can think of several physical descriptive Brandon uses in the book that do not much this supposed “physical age”. No matter how I look at it, it does not work. Aging everyone just does not work and is not consistent with the story we currently have. So why ???
A Roshar year is something like 500 days if memory serves. Judging a year by the passing of seasons is meaningless on Roshar sense they apparently come in random order and don’t always last the same lengths of time.
As a side note, are we sure that their days are the equivalent of 24 hours? For some reason, I’ve always gotten the impression that Roshar is a bit smaller than Earth.
In any case, my guess is that simply saying X character is really Y age probably doesn’t work on a completely 1:1 ratio with Earth humans. Dalinar at “50” would be 68 (25,000 days divided by 365 day years). No way is he still a fighting man in that good a shape at that age.
So I see at least three possibilities:
1. The days are shorter on Roshar and their Real, real age is somewhere between their written age and their Earth age.
2. SPOILERS for Mistborn: We’ve already seen the Lord Ruler use the power of a Shard to change the people on Scadrial on a biological level to breath the ash filled air without dying horribly. Honor and/or Cultivation may have modified people in any number of ways (aging process included) to survive life on Roshar. End spoliers
3. It’s also possible that the planet years vs “real” age vs maturity level discrepancies are just a continuity error and Brandon really does see them as being 19, 23, etc. while he’s writing them (even if he does know the difference). All writers make mistakes or forget details from time to time, and considering just how alien Roshar is compared to Earth it’ll be a miracle if he does manage to keep all the little details like that 100% consistent across the entire series.
Which is the truth? I haven’t the foggiest…
My bet would be for wcarter’s 2 in the above post. Since the humans were introduced by Honor and Cultivation, it wouldn’t be that weird for them to age so that the Roshar year is equivalent to what a normal year would be.
Although Dalinar being in better fighting shape than he should be – a medic did say that Dalinar shouldn’t be able to fight as well as he did with all his scars, and he seemed to find the sensation of Stormlight familiar, so that might be playing a role. Plus, Rosharan humans are a bit hardier than the norm aren’t they? Because of the constant Highstorms and their Investment?
@49 FenrirMoridin
I’m still not sure, but I’m leaning towards no. 2 myself. Now that you mention it, constant exposure to Stormlight probably has at least some effect on the relative health of everyone on Roshar, not just Dalinar or other proto-Radiants.
Afterall, Sadeas is roughly the same age as Dalinar, and he could still fight quite well. For some reason, I just cant imagine any self-respecting spren consider him for a bond.
@49: Dalinar has had too many injuries to his shoulder for it to still work perfectly (which makes me wonder how a full shardbearer ended being inured so often…). I recall my father had to stop playing badminton in his early fifties because of a lasting injury for which he could not cope anymore. Therefore, the surgeon comments on Dalinar’s shoulder does fit his actual age of 50.
68 years old Dalinar would not still be riding in battle, let’s be frank and Sadeas, who is the same age, would not start to angst just now about aging… His internal monologue on his physical shape is very typical of men in their early fifties, but quite outdated from one in his late sixties.
I thus lean towards number 2). Humans age according to the Rosharian year and not the equivalent Earth year. If not, then the entire story stops making sense.
Roshar: 1 year = 500 days * 20 hours = 10000 hours
Earth: 1 year = 365.25 days * 24 hours = 8766 hours
Ratio: 1 Roshar year = 1.14 earth years
So: Roshar Earth
Shallan 17.5 20
Renarin 19 22
Kaladin 20 23
Adolin 23 26
Elhokar 27 31
Jasnah 34 39
Dalinar, Sadeas 50 57
@51: Considering the medic’s response I’d say Dalinar’s shoulder is more beat up than you would even expect for a fighter at his age – it makes me wonder, since we know that with Kaladin Stormlight wouldn’t touch his slave brands (or even let them get tattoo’d over unless he consciously held it back), maybe Dalinar got the healing effect of Stormlight (or something similar, although the options for that seem weird: how could he have gotten exposed to, say, a Regrowth fabrial and not remember it?) later on so it helped restore the injured tissue beneath, but left the scarring above untouched?
@52: Interesting, I forgot about the Rosharan day’s length. Oddly enough, though, as close as those ages are, especially with the younger characters…I’d still say they feel closer to their Rosharan age than the Earth equivalent. I wouldn’t be surprised if the implication, then, is that it’s a social thing: because it’s x number of years to them they still behave the same as if it’d be x number of years on another planet.
@53: About Dalinar, how did he even managed to get injured badly and repetitively on his shoulder while wearing a Plate? It seems very hard to get injured while being a Shardbearer. At the Tower, neither Dalinar nor Adolin got injured and the later’s Plate was completely trashed. So how?
As for the ages, I agree the characters are much closer to their Rosharian ages than their Earth equivalent, but it is not simply a matter of psychological development, but also physical description. The characters are not described as being in their mid-twenties, but their early twenties. Would you sincerely call a 26 years old youthful? Perhaps compare to a 60 years old, but when the comment comes from Kaladin? And Shallan… Would Sebrarial take her for a young teenager if she were in her physical twenties? I can accept a 17 years old may look young enough to pass for a younger teenager, but I have yet to meet a 23 years old that can pass for one… As for Kaladin, would everyone be so amazed at this age if he was nearing his mid-twenties? Probably not. Therefore, I tend to believe they just age as per their book age and this independently of the Rohsarian year lenght when compare to Earth. The opposite just do not make sense and if it is indeed the case, then Brandon is not writing his characters right. In any advent, the whole “coming of age” trope we have going om in SA just does not work with an older cast: the kids all seem out of sync with these ages.
In regards to the casual I think one thing we need to keep in mind is we haven’t seen the conversation between Dalinar, Jasnah and Navani. So we don’t know what they talked and what Jasnah said to convince them to agree to it. Jasnah knew that Shallan was a budding Radiant so she needed to get her safe. And I think that Adolin was a safer bet than Renarin – who hasn’t even shown an interest in romance or dating. I also think that since Dalinar has started to go to the political route that he’s realized, between books, what someone marrying Adolin would mean and he wants to, as mentioned in the quote control it.
Jasnah is a very strict standard person who doesn’t tend to be wrong, so if she thought it was a good idea, I think they would probably agree with her.
At least that’s how I always read it.
@53, 54 Dalinar and Adolin are front line fighters. Whether they wear shard plate or not, they’re going to get injured occasionally. Think about how many professional athletes in non-contact sports wind up with severe, debilitating injuries just because of how often and how hard they have to push their bodies.
We also cant be sure that every time he has ever fought–particularly in his youth, it was in Shardplate, or that he was never injured by the shard-plate literally exploding into shrapnel when it broke. If anything his body is slightly less worn out than I would expect, especially compared to many martial artists I’ve known who’ve never fought someone actually trying to kill them.
I can maybe, maybe see Dalinar as 57, but if so then the Shard Plate is the only reason he can still fight at all.
But if that was the case, then no one should have been surprised in the first book when he started to consider stepping down as a front line leader. He could have just said he was “getting too old.”
Instead he and everyone else acted like the only reason he would ever consider it was if he were losing his mind. Which makes me think he has a least another 5+ plausible years of personal fighting still left in him (not likely in a 57 year old).
Also, why would Sadeas still be so hard up for a Shard Blade if he so old he should be leaving the front lines soon anyway?
Even accounting for shorter days, I’m now quite convinced that they (as an entire population, not just proto-radiant individuals) are either aging slower due to Stormlight or some other biological factor of which we are not aware, or Brandon just plain forgot to account for the differences in the length of a year on Roshar compared to Earth when he initially set ages for the main characters.
Well, now I”ve beaten that Ryshadium to death I’m just going to sit back and read the shipping posts. They’re funner anyway.
One thing to note is that Roshar gravity is substantially less than Earth-normal (I don’t remember the exact totals, but 70-80 percent springs to mind). In general, everyone (of adult age, at least) will seem and feel younger than their Earth-counterparts because of the deleterious effects of gravity on the human body. Weighing 10-20 kilos less will lead to a lot less joint damage over a lifetime.
necarion @57 – Okay, so how do I move to Roshar? I could be liking these side effects of lower gravity…
@57 necarion: Interesting. That does make sense if, when the Rosharan humans were being designed, they were made as if for a “normal” (Earth-standard) gravity. Although the biology nerd in me wonders then how they’re slowly changing, because if so then their bodies are probably slowly changing to adjust to that (although given the timescale of how long the humans have been there, only so much change could have occurred – but having bodies built for earth gravity on a planet with less gravity would slowly be adjusted I think).
This makes me wonder how informed Tanavast was on these processes when he worked. We’ve seen in Mistborn that what a Shardbearer (Adolnasium) can do is limited somewhat by their knowledge.
@56: True but Adolin has been repetitively hit him many times, during the 4 on 1 duel, he has had one shoulder plate and on helmet blast on him and yet, he walked out of it completely unscathed… It thus mean you can take hits over hits by powerful war hammer without even being dazed. It does not look easy to actually injure a Shardbearer which is why I wonder how it is Dalinar got injured so often… As for his Plate, it is true we do not know when he earned it, but we do know he bonded Oathbringer 30 years at the approximate age of 20 years old. We do not know if he won it or if it was handed down to him. However, I have been assuming he’s had his Plate for nearly as long as his ease with it testify from a very long use. I also doubt he went to war with Galivar without one and it happened some 20 years ago. And they were fighting mere humans, no challenge to a full Shardbearer. The only fight we have seen Adolin actually get injured was when he was up against the transformed Parshendi and they did not harm him… Szeth did. Therefore, it took a surgebinder to take out Adolin as even Eshonai in stormform failed to do so. Shardbearer look very, very, very hard to beat down and one as skilled as Dalinar must have been unbeatable.
Considering the medical knowledge, I take the above exchange at being pretty truthful – I imagine if Dalinar didn’t have access to some kind of healing his shoulder would be beyond use. I imagine the scarring is a combination of injuries taken when that piece of Shardplate was broken, with maybe wounds from brawling – Dalinar was a violent man in his youth, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got into a lot of fights where he didn’t have time (or it was to close quarters) for him to use his Shardblade (and of course we know it takes time to put on Shardplate).
Admittedly this is a small exchange during the finale where a lot is happening, but I can’t see this as not being intentional, especially considering Dalinar’s thoughts on how Stormlight feels later on. Dalinar even admits to himself that part of it is just him getting older – but I think there’s a significant difference between some ability lost from age and a professional medic’s opinion that the arm should be basically unusable.
I do not question the fact his shoulder was seriously injured a few times in his younger years… I wonder how it happened as so far, it has been very difficult to injure a Shardbearer. There could be thousand of plausible explanations, but I still wonder. Adolin has lost many Plate parts throughout both books and yet never retained one single injury, which makes me believe harming a full Shardbearer is nearly impossible.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think this new site has seriously degraded from the original site in terms of ease of use. I can’t find any of the re-reads I used to follow any more (other than this one), and the latest comments on this re-read do not show up on the page unless one clicks the comments themselves on the front page.
Well maybe we’ll see some of the injuries in Dalinar’s flashback, when it happens.
FWIW, as tough as Shardbearers are, with the Alethi’s predilection for assassination and other sneaky tactics, I’m sure there were plenty of times Dalinar got caught without his Shardplate during the unification. It’s great stuff for defense, but the long time to put it on has its drawbacks.
@@@@@58 Wetlander Ask hoid?
As for me I’d stay away. After all there was this scene:
I can’t speak for other people, but I certainly wouldn’t find Roshar all that pleasant slowed aging process or no. I sometimes get low light depression during the winter months when it tends to rain a lot. Good ole sunshine and vitamin D are good for the mind and body you know?
@@@@@ Gepeto
There’s no telling how Dalinar wound up with all his various wonds, but I would love to see at least some of his early days if/when we get his flashback book.
Still, there may be a simple explaination maybe we’re just reading Shard plate as being more impervious than it really is?
Most scenes with plate mention spidering crackes from just about anything. In any case even when the plate doesn’t break doesn’t mean that Dalinar, Adolin, ect. aren’t getting injured. It acts more like ceramic that cracks to distribute the force of a blow than metal that just widthstands it.
Soliders wearing plate can also feel when their armor takes hits, which is a good thing. If they were completely impervious to feeling blows, then they would have no way of knowing if someone was behind them destroyihg a section of their armor until it actually shattered and they suddenly found an axe buried in the back of their ribs. Someone like that wouldn’t last 30 seconds on a battlefield let alone 30 years,
I’m guessing that even battles we’ve seen them leave ‘uninjured’ they’ve probably collected a varitiable rainbow of bruises, blisters, scrapes and or small cuts across their body, just don’t consider them to be serious enough to comment upon.
@64-65: I am so keen on reading Dalinar’s flashbacks! He has led such an interesting life, his character currently leaves me with a thousand open questions. It is true he could have gotten injured outside a battle, at a time where he was not wearing his Plate. I do want to know about the circumstances… We know so little of past Dalinar other then he was an angry, jealous, drunken warmonger that somehow managed to seduced a pretty foreigner with an artistic streak and a sympathetic, emphatic personality. Both, his children love him deeply: his eldest is literally hero-worshiping him even through his adult years. It does not seem as he did such a bad job at being a husband and a father. Sure he was not perfect, but his family life differs so much from the glimpses we have had of the Blackthorn so far, it left me with more questions than answers.
Shardbearers do feel the blows: we have numerous quotes of Adolin commenting on the blows he receives, though the only times he complained about being bruised/injured were after the encounters with Szeth… He sure never had his shoulder destroyed, which makes me wonder even more how Dalinar did it.
Do we know how old Galivar was when he took the throne? i.e. were Jasnah & Elhokar born? 7 years between them seems like a LONG time to produce a living male heir if he was already king…
@67: We know Dalinar was 50 years old in the beginning of WoK, which means he had Adolin when he was 27-28 years old. At the time, Jasnah was 11-12 years old and Elhokar was 4-5 years old, thus at the time of Jasnah’s birth, Dalinar was about 16-17 years old… We know he courted Shshshsh for 3 years before she agreed to marry her, which brings him to 24-25 years old. We know he did a long trip to the West following Galivar and Navani’s wedding, to erase the pain of losing Navani. We know he introduced Navani to Galivar, which means he was old enough to court at the time. Also, we know Navani was born something like 3 months before Dalinar.
Alethi marry young, so I would assume Galivar was about 19 years old when he married, which means he was Dalinar’s elder by 2 years. It would make sense, considering the rivalry between the two, they did not have a big age difference. I am assuming Jasnah was born 9 months after the wedding. The relationship did not go so well: it therefore took them 4-5 years before making another child.
Dalinar and Shshsh, on the other hand, had one child, then another one 3-4 years later. Why 3-4 years? I dunno, the relationship worked well, so it could be Adolin was a handful or Shshsh did not have such a strong health, but after Renarin’s birth, the war started, so opportunity to make other children must have vanished.
Based on this highly speculative reverse engineered timeline from me, Galivar was about 46 years old when he died.
Do we know what “20 hours per day” means? This came from some WoB somewhere, but does it mean the actual length of the Rosharan day, measured in our hours, or does it mean the Rosharan day is divided into 20 Rosharan hours. Because if it is the latter case, then that is not enough info to make age adjustments. I remember reading somewhere that Rosharan years are 1.1 earth years, but I am too lazy to find references.
@68: Nice speculation.
@69: Guessing it is 20 Rosharan hours, since they have no concept of our 24 hour day. It would be like an Earthly having to think about things in terms of Martian hours. Unless you are there, it doesn’t make since to think of another planets hours in the context of your own.
The age debate has been interesting to follow. Thankfully BWS is much better at writing and thinking of people as the ages he presents. Unlike GRRM who wrote all the Stark children as too young for their actions. So I’m going with they are the ages as presented. But maybe Rosharian’s just age really well and slower than us. Some ethnic groups (as a whole) on Earth age much better than others. With exceptions possible.
RE: Shoulder injuries – it’s very possible to have a permanently damaged joint, yet never have received a direct injury. Think of baseball pitchers. Overuse = damage. Even with plate, he’s been working his muscles the same way for years. micro tears from overuse could lead to damage.
Unrelated: Please look at my shiny new avatar icon! :-)
It is a glyph of a “Braid” straight from Isaac Stewart. We meet and talked several times at JordanCon 2014. I gave him chocolate in appreciation of his great work. I asked if there was a glyph of a braid. Now there is one.
Once again Team Sanderson ROCKS!!!
Braid_Tug – SHINY!!!!
On the side note, about wedding and children, anyone else wondering why it took several years for Elhokar to produce a child? On my speculation thread, I tend to assume both Jasnah and Adolin were born shortly after their parents got married (9 months later to be more precise). Based on their age, it seems clear there was not a large gap in between the wedding and their birth. Elhokar, however, was married at 19 years old and he is all but one infant son. Infant is a term used to described a very young child, below 18 months of age. So unless Jasnah is misusing the term, which would not be too far-fetched as if there is one area I’d wager she knows next to nothing of, it would be children, or the kid truly is very young. So how come Elhokar waited so long to put his wife pregnant? Even at the time of his father’s death, he had been married a few years, long enough to have produce at least one child……….
@50 wcarter
ohhhhhh, Now thats a thought, It is mentioned that the Alethi are Taller than the norm. Alethkar is one of the first nations to be hit by the highstorms so it might make sense for the people there to grow larger and stronger than the norm elsewhere. And speaking of biological quirks, we already know most of the races on Roshar are different, Herdazians with rock like fingernails, Natannatan peoples with thin pale skin and blue veins, The horneaters, etc Even the Hair color has been pointed out to be different genetically. So we do know they are different that baseline humans
While the ages of the characters listed by @28, Wetlandernw need to be modified to correspond to earth ages, the conversion is not too clear. The simple ratio of 500 Rosharian days per year to 365 earth days per year (1.37) that was used by @44 is not the whole story. Given the prominence of the number 10 in Roshar, it seems that the Rosharian day was 20 hours rather than the earthly 24. Then 500 days per year corresponds to 10,000 hours. The corresponding earthly hours per year is 8,766. Taking the ratio of 10,000/8766 gives 1.1408 as the ratio needed to multiply Rosharian years to get earth equivalents. Using the latter ratio makes Kaladin at 20 Rosharian years equivalent to an earthly 23 year old. Interestingly, Brandon in a response (WOB) used that value as our equivalent to Kaladin’s stated age. Shallan’s 17 years then becomes 19.4, and Adolin’s 23 becomes 26 (i.e., add about 3 years at that age decade to get the earthly equivalent). Even, Jasnah at 34 becomes only 39, and Dalinar in his early 50s becomes an equivalent late 50 ish (7 year difference). In other words, our perception of age related changes needn’t by modified simply on the basis of differences between Rosharian years and earthly. However, maturity is also a function of culture, and we have some examples that training for adulthood started earlier in Vorinian culture as evidenced by Kaladin’s early apprenticeship to his surgeon father and Adolin’s early training to the sword.
@48: Roshar definitely has lower gravity than Earth according to WoB, so that supports the theory that it is probably smaller than Earth as well.
I think I even remember Brandon saying that yes, indeed, the shorter days somewhat mitigate the fact that years are 500 days long. I think we can probably run with the 23/20 ratio of ages he gave us for Kaladin and use it to estimate the “real” age of other characters as well. (So in our terms, Jasnah is 39ish, and Sadeas is 57 or 58.)
Wow, everything I just wrote has already been written in earlier comments that (for some reason) weren’t showing up for me. Whoops, sorry.
To contribute something (minor) new: Rosharians might just be less fertile in general than Earth humans. Shallan’s family has 5 kids, and some Horneater families have 4 or more … but what if more than 3 or 4 kids is actually pretty rare on Roshar?
I second @76 McKay B’s comment and equally apologize for duplicating @52 Xaladin’s calculation of equivalent earth ages. I forgot to click the “check for new comments” box before commenting. Parenthetically, where was Dalinar’s age specified?
@74: For me these new ages change everything in my perception of the characters. They just do not work no matter how hard we pin it down in stating their mature more slowly. There is slow and slow. And what to do of Tien who still had not have his puberty when he was called to the army? Age him only by one year and he becomes implausible. Adolin is also entirely implausible as a 26 years old, everything from physical description to maturity level talks of someone much younger. Shallan at nearly 20 would not be taken for a young teenager nor would she be as naive, this does not work at all and Dalinar/Sadeas, at 57, would not still be in his prime fighting age. Kaladin probably is the most plausible character, but this is due to him acting more mature most of the time and looking it. Also, Jasnah age would have started to show at 39… Mid-thirties women can still look young enough, but as you near forty, aging starts to show… irrevocably and unfortunately.
So I am sorry, it may be canon, it may be a reality, but I just cannot picture the characters at these age. They do not work for me and it is plain ridiculous Brandon would write a book, give us age, only to state years later these are not right as the planet rotates differently… Does not make sense. 99% of readers do not read the WoB… so it cannot be canon.
FYI, I think Dalinar’s age is mentioned in WoK.
FWIW, in TWoK Ch. 56, Dalinar states that he and Sadeas are the same age; in WoR Ch. 5, Sadeas says that he’s fifty.
Speaking of the effects of Stormlight, one thing I heard at a Sanderson book signing, was that Stormlight means the people on Roshar experience better health in general than us. The plague that was affecting the Purelake, was the common cold. World hoppers had brought it to Roshar and because they had not experienced that kind of inconvinience before, they thought of it as a plague.
@80 ZenBossanova: I remember seeing that mentioned before! I remember initially thinking it was silly, but really, if you think of how the common cold makes you feel without the context of other people who have experienced it and can tell you it will pass…makes sense it would cause a plague scare.
It’s like all the Rosharans were kids getting a cold for the first time.
@79 Wetlandernw, thanks for the reference. If Dalinar is 50 and Jasnah is 34, i.e., only a 16 year difference between them, then he was 15 or less when his older brother married Navani (assuming no premarital relations). Yet, Navani had to decide between Gavilar and his 15 year old younger brother. That is another indication of a difference between Rosharian age and the earth equivalent, or an attestation to an earlier maturity in Roshar, or both.
They are considered adults at 16. I thus believe Dalinar was 16 when he met Navani, but she preferred his older brother. They married rapidly and they had Jasnah shortly after. It does work. Dalinar is 50, but he may be nearing 51 and perhaps Jasnah just turned 34. I doubt Dalinar was 15 years old as I doubt under-aged kids are allowed to court.
It does not mean they are considered old enough for marriage at 16, they truly are mature. Teenagers are perfectly able to have children and as others pointed out, they are a warring society. The argument they need to marry young to have children young before they die in battle is valid.
In any advent, the Alethi do not seem to regard wedding the same way we do. They rarely marry for love and they start their adult life with a spouse. Considering the men cannot read, it also makes sense to give them someone to help them with reading at a young age.
I do not read this as a sign they mature faster or their age is false as their behavior speak for people their alleged age, simply their cultural background is very different than ours. Let’s not forget a 100 years ago, people often married in their teens.
Also in the for-what-it’s-worth department regarding age, and particularly Dalinar’s fitness at (perhaps) 57 years of age… My dad at age 72 could still wield a 28-inch gas-powered chainsaw at arm’s length for nearly half an hour before he needed to take a quick breather – and then he’d get frustrated that he had to stop “so soon.” So the idea of someone in his late fifties being in Dalinar’s physical condition, especially given the lower gravity and the Stormlight enhancement, is not at all inconceivable.
These are only anecdotes, but will show that it does happen.
At 19, I was often mistaken for 14.
At 25, people who knocked on my door would ask me if my mom was home, so apparently I looked 17ish.
And I do know other people in their late 20s whom I would describe as “youthful.”
I have to apologize for making such a big deal out of the age issue, but it is indeed very difficult for me. It goes as bad as saying I may disengage myself completely from the characters if they truly are this old. The book tells me a story with plausible characters I have come to like, but the fandom tells me everything the book has told me is wrong because the days have a different length on this planet and somehow this is relevant to a fantasy story set in an imaginary universe… My characters are thus 3-4 years older than I was told by the said book, non-obstant if their trials and psychological developments are telling me the story of younger people. The age difference it would yield between Adolin and Shallan also perturbes me as I think it too much for kids their age to bear. And yes, I’d wager there are real life examples where it worked, but surely they must the exception. The romance no longer is between a young man and a younger woman, but between a grown man and a child. Not working, not for me.
So I am deeply sorry for having insisted so much on this, but really this issue is ruining SA for me (it turns Adolin for a cute character to a pathetic one), as silly as it may sound for some of you. WoB are supposed to be bonus for the fans, not to contradict the entire books.
Despite the following detail, there’s no reason at all to worry about different ages if it bugs you. Think of them in terms of the ages given in the book and run with it! It’s not critical to the story – IMO, it’s just one of those things that Brandon and Peter feel compelled to work out as needed for scientific plausibility in world-building. It’s perfectly legitimate to choose which minor background details to incorporate into your thinking wrt: characters, after all.
That said, I checked in with Team Sanderson, and the official conversion factor they use is 110%. Ages translated that way would be:
Roshar Earth
Shallan 17.5 19+
Kaladin 20 22
Renarin 19 21
Adolin 23 25
Jasnah 34 37
Dalinar 50 55
These are approximate, because Kaladin and Shallan are the only ones whose birthdays we know even approximately. Personally, I don’t think an age difference of 6 years (give or take a few months) is a problem for Adolin and Shallan. Even in Rosharan terms, with Adolin at roughly 23 and Shallan at 17.5, it’s at least 5.5 years. If that’s not a problem, 25 and 19 shouldn’t be, either. In fact, it seems to me like “Adolin is 25” should be less of a problem if you think “Shallan is 19.” (Granted, if you translate Adolin to 26 and inadvertently leave Shallan at 17, that gets dicey in terms of believability, but I’ve known even that to work, and work well. Depends on the individuals.)
@87 Ok I have to say those ages all make perfect sense. Especially if they’re healthier in general than baseline humans due to stormlight or whatever.
Men and women can easily maintain a high level of strength well into old age but injuries due to physical exertion build up over a lifetime in athletes and reflexes do slow, that’s why I at least had problems with a Dalinar any older than late fifties.
The quick and the dead as they say.
Thanks for asking the Powes That Be boss lady
I just have to say this…
I’m so happy our debate here is about the ages of the characters. Not about rape. Those who follow GRRM know what I’m talking about. Thank you Sanderson for not having rape as a plot device.
Thank you @87. It does bug me immensily. I do not understand why the physical development of humans on Roshar have to match exactly those of humans on Earth… As far as science goes, different atmospheric environment may call for a difference aging process: astronauts while in space do age differently than on Earth. It is a fictional world, so I do not understant the relevance of such details, especially since they contradict the books.
The age difference bothers me mostly because, initially, Adolin is presented to us as a young man who has been struggling for a few years to find a proper wife. He is young, he is inexperienced, he does not get it, but because he is handsome, rich and heir to a powerful household, he has no issues finding more girls, up until he runs through all of them. Age him a few years and the portrayal differs. He is not as young, so his difficulties morphed from being understandable to being laughable. He goes from being simply young to an overgrown teenager with the maturity level of a 16 years old which is not a portrayal we have been given in books. I can buy a very young man would shy away from a kiss, but a 25-26 years old? Really??? I do not buy it, unless the man is Sheldon Cooper, but it is not the case here.
90: ” I can buy a very young man would shy away from a kiss, but a 25-26 years old? Really???”
I can. They have totally different social morals. A kiss could have very different social connotations to him than to the average American Joe. In some cultures on Earth, you don’t kiss before marriage.
Considering his level of flirting, it is harder to accept. but I’m willing to hold judgment until I know more about their culture.
I agree with those who are bothered by the adjusted age of the characters (especially Adolin, Shallan and Kaladin) that Wetlandernw posted @87. During the non flashback scenes, Adolin’s action are (IMO) more akin to a 22-23 year old rather than a 25 0r 26 year old. The same with Kaladin (20 vs 22) and Shallan (17.5 vs 19). For me, the bigger issue with this adjusted age is during the flashbacks. Kaladin’s actions during the earliest flashbacks in WoK are not what I would expect of a 14 year old. A typical 16 year old would not act as the 12 year old Kaladin did. With Shallan, I cannot accept that an 11 year old would have acted the same way as a 13 year old. I think there is a different maturity level between an 11 and 13 year old. Further, I think a 13 year old would wear cover her safe hand whereas an 11 year old would not. IIRC, during the earliest flashbacks, Shallan did not cover her safe hand.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
aka the musespren
@92: I am glad someone else shares my view. I agree completely with everything you said. You make good points about Shallan and her safehand: I had not thought of it. As for Kaladin, I completely agree his behavior during his flashbacks were coherent with his book age, but not the updated one. The same goes for Tien. I can accept 13 years old Tien looked like a boy and not a teenager, but 14 years old Tien surely would have had hit puberty. I can accept one character physically aging outside the norm (late puberty, young women who looks like a young teenager, teenage who behaves like a small boy, man who still look youthful at 26 years old), but I cannot accept ALL of them being outside the norm.
So…
Adolin is a 25-26 years old very immature man who still behaves like a 20 years old. He is still in training to become a leader and a soldier with his father while his army highest ranked general refers to him as “lad”. Everyone else calls him “boy” or “youth”. He has no experience with women, is still shy of kissing one and lacks the self-confidence to be more forward typical of young adults. Worst, he still hero-worships his father and never went through the stage where he figures out his childhood vision and the reality are two different things. At 25-26 years of age, he still does not know the truth about the Blackthorn… and he never had the opportunity to fight with his father before his uncle death even if he was about 18-19 years old at the time. Of course, he was not a the feast where Galivar was murdered, Dalinar had to tell him what happened, even if he was more than old enough to be there… Whereas book age Adolin was plausibly probably deemed too young to stay, but go on and say the same thing to a 18-19 years old… Oh and he was not invited the big hunt on the plains where they met the Parshendi, even if he was about 16 years of age and plenty old enough… whereas book aged Adolin was only 14, which again was more plausible. Worst, if I were to read SA without knowing the characters age, I would think Adolin is about 20-21 years old. Not 23 and even less 25-26.
At the same time, Shallan is a 19.5 years old girl who still looks like a young teenager. She is naive as you would expect a teenager to be while having this wild bouncing energy you see in them. She thinks of enhancing herself as Adolin may not like her physic, a habit you see most often in teenagers and not young women. So she too, is a very immature 19.5 years old. As for the difference between 11 and 13 years old in girl: it is HUGE. The difference is puberty. By 13, most girls have reached almost their adult height, they have breasts, they start to have curves: they are small women in becoming. Daddy would not pick up his little 13 years old girl, but he may do so with his little 11 years old one, but of course, Shallan must simply be another character who puberty was delayed by a few years when compared to the average.
Kaladin is a 22 years old who joined the army at nearly 17 years old. His teenage rebellion years arrived late as he did not start to question his father until his mid-late teens, whereas most teenagers will go through the same phase at 13-14 years old age. He also played children’s game with Laral when they were about 14 years old (corrected age) and only then did he realized Laral was growing into a women. Girls usually have their puberty in their 12th year if not before… Very few women will go shy of puberty at 14. True, some have it later, so again, Laral must be one of those people who age more slowly than the others…. and she did not cover her hand until she was 14 years old….
How about Renarin whom everyone takes for a child? A 19 years old man may look like a teenager, but honestly not a 21 years old one. Nobody would take a 21 years old for a child…. Or perhaps it happens, rarely… Oh yes, it happened with every single character in book.
So everyone on Roshar is very immature, has late puberty, looks youthful even pass their mid-twenties, looks like teenager while being in their twenties… Every single character is outside the norm in terms of both physical and psychological growth?
I could go on forever with this. I think Brandon’s teams did not think it through. They got absorbed in their world building issues and they forgot how unrealistic the new ages where for the character Brandon had written. Just because the planet is smaller does not need to affect the aging process of the characters. They could just be humans with a different growth process or it could be the atmosphere is different. It’s fantasy. It does not need to be this precise in terms of physics, but when I read the development of 22-23 years old character, I certainly do not want to be told: “Oh BTW, he’s more like 25-26 years old, but he looks boyish and is very immature…” WHAT? “Oh and BTW, all characters are looking much younger then their age and they are all immature” RE-WHAT?
Gepeto @93 – “It’s fantasy. It does not need to be this precise in terms of physics…” For you, maybe it doesn’t; maybe it would be better if he didn’t try to get these things scientifically correct. But for other readers, a science fail is a book fail. In this, you are at the mercy of the author: if he doesn’t worry about the scientific plausibility of his world-building, he writes things that make some readers cringe; if he does, he risks the kind of issue we’re dealing with in this discussion. Remember that he has fans who went looking for – and found – the mathematics behind the shape of the Rosharan continent. To them, a smaller planet that didn’t reflect the logical differences in gravity, rotation, etc. would be a major failure. In the end, we all have our preferences, and sometimes we need to turn off our sensitivities to enjoy the reading.
If it helps any, I personally will probably go on thinking of characters as their given Rosharan ages, even though part of my mind knows perfectly well that it’s not 100% accurate. I like Shallan as going-on-18, and Adolin as 23-ish, so I’ll still think of them that way no matter what the official science says. I won’t base any character arguments on it, because I know the official version… but I’ll think of them the way I want.
We’ll have to wait and see, of course, but I don’t anticipate that their ages in Rosharan-vs.-Earth terms will actually affect the story. I don’t see why it should.
Wetlander @94 I mostly agree with you. I had also read the science types going after all the small issues. Good for them, what ever floats their boat. If the author did not write the story so you had to have a calculator next to you all the time so you could calculate ages. He wrote them so that you would understand the ages. I knew of the 110% thing but it never came up in reading or rereading the stories. I see Shallan as 17+, no problem to me. The only age issue I have is Dalinar. I have trouble with him at around 15 looking to marry Navani. I look at that as a continuity issue that was missed and live with it.
I see the Storm Cellar here to enhance our understanding and make it a better read, not to drag it down.
Now I will go back to lurking.
@@@@@ Gepeto
It would be a shame to let something like written age vs calendar ruin an otherwise great series for you.
After reading Alice’s comment @@@@@87, I think must Sanderson writes them as acting like the age they’re portrayed at to avoid confusion since most people won’t do conversions.
When every character is mentally and physically closer to their written ages I can just accept it’s on purpose.
Yes the calendar is different making them slightly older. But the “humans” are obviously different too. Strange eye colors, strange hair colors, fingernails, skin patterns, ects. both in nature and nurture they are not like us.
If Roshar is a planet where not even the Common Cold existed prior to recent world-hopper contamination, then it stands to reason they just plain may not age as fast as we do mentally or physically.
In then end, these books are meant to entertain and discussions with fellow fans are a good 70% of it for me, so I hope you’ll still enjoy the series too however you wish to read the characters.
@92, I said “I agree with those who are bothered by the adjusted age of the characters (especially Adolin, Shallan and Kaladin) that Wetlandernw posted @87.” Nevertheless, this does not (and will not) lessen my enjoyment of SA. Like Wetlandernw @94 I will “go on thinking of characters as their given Rosharan ages.” Other than discussing this topic on this (or any future) re-read post, I will not give the character’s “adjusted” age another musing.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
aka the musespren
@94: I guess it is more important for me the characters development is plausible than the physic is accurate. I do not mind the scientific fans get their answers, but the issue at hand is the two contradicts each other. The world supposedly do not work without this 110% age increased, but at the same time, the characters do not work with these ages for various reasons.
For me, the simplest solution is to fix the world issue, but keep the ages as is. I am slightly flustered the scientific issue should prime over the already written characters. Why should my enjoyment of the series by less important then the enjoyment of another fan more inclined on the physical aspect? Why should the incongruities we can find if we age the characters matter less than the ones pertaining the world building? Couldn’t we find a solution that befits everyone?
@95: The problem is the author confirmed I should be using a calculator to fix their ages… Now that I know, I will always have this in mind. It cannot simply ignore a WoB from the author, even if I think he has it wrong and he should treat the issue differently. It is his work, he can do as he sees fit, but I wish he would hear more the arguments from the character lovers fans… Can the voices of those who are mostly interested in characters development be overheard over those interested in the world building?
As for Dalinar, I figured he had a crush on Navani, but surely he did not meant to marry her right away. Besides, he is 50 and Jasnah is 34. If Dalinar is nearing on 51 and Jasnah just turned 34, then Dalinar was 16 at the time or very close to. Navani is three months older and I doubt they marry before 16, so he was very close in age to her. Random wild thought here… What if Navani chose Galivar not because she was scared of Dalinar’s anger, but because she eloped and got pregnant from Galivar without being married????
@98 Gepeto
So you think Jasnah may have been a surprise that led to Navani marrying Gavilar? Now there’s a juicy theory.
It’s certainly possible, but Dalinar was a self-professed war monger. So even if she did concieve out of wed-lock, which don’t know either way, there’s no way to prove that Dalinar’s intensity wasn’t what made her accepting of Gavilar’s advances.
If Jasnah was somehow a factor, I would think that Navani will probably own up to it with Dalinar at some point considering that she was the initial well would aggressor in persuing a romantic relationship with Dalinar this time around.
Besides, whaterver else he may be, Dalinar is not a fool. He can certainly count the number of months between his brother’s wedding and the birth of his first child. If the two are very close together he–and everyone else in the Alethi Court–would certainly have figured it out eventually.
Everyone, give yourselves a pat on the back (seriously). This level of discussion is simply awesome. Wouldn’t be possible without some fantastic world-building by BS. I’m a Rothfuss fan-boy to my bones but the cosmere takes world-building to a new level.
This is all so much better to read, than for example the reams of Broken Empire haters complaining about the morality of Lawrence’s characters.
@98: Juicy, huh? I could have happen when we think of it… Babies can often be born several weeks in advance or several weeks late… If she were three months pregnant when she married and she had Jasnah at 41 weeks, then people would just think the baby was a few weeks early… It happens, quite often. Rosharians do not have ultrasounds to evaluate precisely the date of conception, they must have relied on uterus length which is highly fluctuating… It can be several weeks off. If hers was small, the surgeons may think it plausible she was got pregnant after the wedding… Not impossible at all.
Dalinar was 16 years old at the time or perhaps even a bit younger. No way he was a war-monger back then! He simply was a feisty angry jealous teen with dreams of becoming a soldier and a leader, but without the drive to take his place in front of his older, more handsome, more friendly, more everything brother. Navani said she was scared of his intensity… thus she chose Galivar, but it is quite clear she wished she had chosen Dalinar. She regretted. Would she have opened up to Dalinar about the true reasons behind her decision? Maybe or maybe not. Maybe she did not want to push the issue or maybe she simply believes not all truths are worth telling.
As for Dalinar counting the months: he is a man and he was a teenager back then. How much do you think men this age know about childbirth? Next to nothing. No way he calculated it. Probably did not even cross his mind and even if he did? Does not matter, as long as the child is Galivar’s.
In anyway, we can’t prove this. There is not enough arguments, but it is a plausible way to explain how it is Navani married Galivar so quickly and why she had Jasnah so fast. So yeah, Dalinar being 15 going on 16 or barely 16 at the time when he met Navani can work within canon.
And no way all Alethi are a prude as Dalinar or as shy as Adolin… Surely there must be a few things going on behind closed doors we are not being told of.
I’m going to have to go and agree with wcarter @96 – there is so much that points to vast differences biologically and genetically with the humans and others that we see, which along with the magical effects of stormlight immersion, could easily cause the differences that are being noted in mental and emotional development.
Likewise, the idea that Brandon got all of this science stuff correct and then had all of the ages figured out across the board, and then blundered something like this… seems inconsistent. Especially when you consider the universality of this – maybe if he blundered how Shallan acted as a little girl, along with Adolin’s issues, and got everyone else correct. In that case, I think we could be justified in thinking, “oh, Brandon made a mistake” – but when, as was pointed out – EVERYONE that we see in the world is on the same timeline developmentally… that makes me think the issue might just have been thought through and any issues might be being caused by our cultural overlays and viewpoints coming to the text. I will choose to trust that Brandon knows what he is doing and has mapped out where this is going.
As has been pointed out, there are vastly different cultural overlays in our own world that can cause behavioral fluctuations, not to mention biological realities that are not necessarily fixed – for instance, onset of puberty is not fixed and can shift according to different environmental factors – not vastly of course in our own world, but is it really that hard to accept that an entirely alien environment with humans that may or may not be genetically/biologically identical to earth humans may have a different developmental arc?
Beyond that, to me the whole situation on Roshar just smacks of issues similar to post-industrial revolution cultural constructs about ages of consent, ages of maturity, marriageable ages, etc, which created artificial ideals such as a period called adolescence between childhood and adulthood, and were followed up with mid-20th century overlays on things like voting age at 18 or drinking ages at 21 (in the US at least – other cultures and places, of course, have their own determining constructs) as defining adulthood which have come to determine a vast array of behavioral and developmental onset markers in the modern human: 16-year old males in the US today, I would dare say, are vastly less mature or responsible than their counterparts even 100 years ago (much less 2 centuries ago) who may have been already preparing for marriage, the realities of agricultural work, etc. Rosharan cultural constructs require a different categorization of maturity levels in different areas of life, all of which seem to vary depending on overarching cultural overlays (in many cases undergirded by religious sentiment, i.e. Vorinism). Thus, it is easy (for me) to see Adolin as having issues kissing a girl, while being able to slaughter thousands with a shardblade. Heck, I know people who in their mid-twenties IRL had made it huge economically, but had not matured enough emotionally to be able to date seriously (I really don’t think we can label Adolin’s flirting as serious…) and would have been put off by the prospect of intimacy of any kind (which would include kissing or even a hint of emotional dependence or non-superficial opening of the soul). It is clear that Brandon is playing with cultural, religious, and political overlays in environment and how those interact with social inhibitions to create, inform, and determine to some degree character growth and development. I’m happy to let him play. It’s not going to ruin my fun, and it may just make me do some thought experiments of my own….at the very least, it bring up something to have some real in-depth (and real life pertinent) discussions about. How long’s it been since we hit a hunny hereabouts?
ETA: congrats CharlieSP!
Sorry for the double post (at least you know I’m not trying for the Hunny :P) – but I took a leaf out of Wetlander’s book and went and did the dishes, and came away with a few more thoughts to share.
Gepeto noted some of this @40 – but it seems to me to be the case that in Vorin, particularly Alethi, society, the married status of a person is a major milestone in them being considered an adult – probably, it could be considered to be the rite of passage into adulthood. But, I think there needs to be another distinction made – that there are probably differing levels of adulthood going on. Thus, while all of our characters to some degree could be considered adults, in world, there is a special place for adulthood being associated with marriage. This particularly comes through as it is reinforced by Vorin ideals of gender complementarity – i.e. a man without a woman or a woman without a man is not considered whole. Thus, no matter what age Adolin or Jasnah are, they won’t be fully considered adult within the society until they are married. Now, this doesn’t mean that they don’t have a part, etc, and other actions/behaviors may make up for it to some degree or another – but that might not matter to certain older and more traditional types…
For what its worth, I’m getting to this based in the fact that such positions exist within certain communities IRL. Of particular interest here is the fact that this is a not-insignificant tension within Brandon’s faith tradition (LDS, which incidentally I share) where members who have not had a temple marriage can be considered (theologically) as not as adult as others. Thus, you have people in their early to mid-twenties who have joined the highest echelons of adulthood theologically, but are still less mature, responsible, etc than others who outstrip them in all other measures of adulthood. It should be duly noted however that this type of dynamic is not confined to Mormon culture, but can be seen (and I have seen firsthand having degrees in Middle Eastern Studies, Israeli studies, and Islamic studies/Religious studies) in many other, largely religious cultural contexts – including in religious Jewish circles, Muslim cultures, and other Christian denominations. (If anyone is interested, look up the Israeli TV show Srugim (free on Amazon prime) which explores these tensions, among other aspects within the National Religious identity in Jerusalem). To be sure, these issues are very complex, and are informed by many other variables – thus, “adulthood” as a category is a highly fluid concept.
This type of dynamic and religio-cultural overlay can be confusing to outsiders, especially those coming with different assumptions and ideas about what the cut-off for adulthood is. Thus, to my mind, Brandon is playing these age-related issues out with a fairly open hand toward seeing a religious system as determinative in defining adulthood, maturity, and developmental milestones. Outsiders, particularly from a completely secular worldview, may not see some of the issues going on and can end up misreading them….
It’s funny how just a 10% difference in age can spark so much discussion!
What makes me curious is why Team Sanderson keeps that conversion…is it just so they have it quickly on hand, or will that difference in Rosharan age compared to Earth equivalents actually be important?
I suspect the former, they like to square away the science when they can (and know when magic needs to compensate – time bubbles immediately spring to mind, but I’m sure there are plenty of others).
@102: You state: “Likewise, the idea that Brandon got all of this science stuff correct and then had all of the ages figured out across the board, and then blundered something like this… seems inconsistent. ” Whereas I do agree with this statement, I am afraid the truth is slightly different. From what I gathered, fans uprooted the issues with the planet and Brandon’s team accommodated them by stating Rosharian years were indeed 1.1 times Earth years. From there, the discussion on the characters ages sprouted, but nobody seemed to have mentioned how illogical it was to age them in such way. In fact, I have not seen many people bring forward the issue. I feel Brandon, in his effort to draft a plausible world, has pushed aside the age problem and as nobody ever brought it up, it became canon. From my short time on the fandom, I have noticed two kind of fans: those heavily interested into the world building and the investiture and those interested in character building. The former seem more numerous than the later or more vocal perhaps which may have made the balance tip towards aging the characters in order to fit the world building criteria. Again, I wish Brandon would solve the issue differently, but since he has already stated Kaladin would look like a 23 years old on Earth, I must accept the age thing is real, much to my utter dismay.
I do trust Brandon, except… Except other people have brought up WoB were he canonized the corrected ages. So he did not blunder… He probably did wrote them as their book age, initially, but decided it was better to have characters incongruities than world building ones. Or he does not believe the corrected age are an issue or maybe he has not thought about it.
Yes the argument humans on Roshar are widely different than those on Earth is extremely valid. However, if this were the case, if they truly did not age as we do, then why state Kaladin would be 23 Earth years? Why not state, they have a slightly different aging process? After all, they do have different genetic than us when it comes to hair coloring…
As for Adolin, it is not just the kissing the girls that is amiss. There is also the fact he has carried his hero-worshipping syndrome towards his father well into adulthood (most children will lose this through their teenage years or even before), which was more plausible when he was younger. Combined with the fact his physical description matches that of a much younger man just makes my head swirl. It is true, we can find real life examples of young men in their mid-twenties who look younger, who still have issues with simple things such as kissing, who are abnormally shy towards the opposing sex, but they are rare. Adolin’s problems with flirting are tightly linked to self-confidence issues with his abilities to retain a girl. Many young people go through such phase, but by their mid-twenties, they usually have move out of it, especially those who have started dating at 16! As for the slaughtering, how at ease is he really with it? Once he lost the Thrill, he could not even lift his Blade… Too many things do not add up with Adolin in his mid-twenties. It is not just one little issue, it is the whole character that falls apart, unless Brandon intended to write a highly immature man-child, but it is not what we read in-books.
I did not get anyone did not considered Jasnah an adult… except perhaps Dalinar, but in his case, it is clear he is transfering his former affection for his brother onto his children. We see it in his behavior towards Elhokar who is, according to Dalinar, a strong man and a strong king… while turning a blind eye on his misgiving, inclusing his alchool issue… Strange for a man that forbids his son to have even one glass of wine at a party.
@104: It is important because the fandom will keep on bringing it forward. No matter the subject of the discussion, someone will pop in and state: “BTW, they are much older”. The entire character discussion will be heavily tainted by it and those who thrived on characters building will be left to deal with incongruities in the story. If Adolin is 25-26 years old, then my entire analysis of him is simply wrong. I have to re-start. Same with Shallan and Kaladin and Renarin. Dalinar is probably fine because the difference between 50 and 57 is not huge, but we all know how much we change in our young years. As much as the world building conversation is highly relevant, so is the characters one.
Is there any textual support or WoB that a human pregnancy on Roshar is typically 36 weeks? If a full term is not 36 weeks, that may put a different spin on the age difference between Dalinar and Jasnah.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
aka the musespren
Gepeto @105 – “As for Adolin, it is not just the kissing the girls that is amiss. There is also the fact he has carried his hero-worshipping syndrome towards his father well into adulthood (most children will lose this through their teenage years or even before), which was more plausible when he was younger. Combined with the fact his physical description matches that of a much younger man just makes my head swirl. It is true, we can find real life examples of young men in their mid-twenties who look younger, who still have issues with simple things such as kissing, who are abnormally shy towards the opposing sex, but they are rare.”
I have to take issue with this whole thing. What you call “hero worship” I call well-founded respect – and as for “most children will lose this through their teenage years” I call humbug. Our culture has fostered some weird artifacts in the attitudes of children to parents and vice versa, but a) it has not always been so and b) it need not be so, even now. The notion that teenagers will of course rebel and lose respect for their parents is a lie from the pit of hell, but it is thrown at us from every direction so that we have a stupid tendency to believe it. And pretending it were true, even in our twisted culture people often outgrow that adolescent contempt for their parents by their mid-twenties.
Physical description – “much younger“??? We’re talking two years’ difference in age, and the description just doesn’t differentiate that. If he’d been described like a twelve-year-old, sure – but if we’ve had no problem with his description at an assumed age of 23, how is it suddenly unbelievable if he’s 25? Sorry, but I don’t think people age so much in two years that it’s suddenly implausible.
Kissing – or “simple things such as kissing” – As has been stated before, this is so much a cultural thing that it’s futile to apply our expectations. This is a culture where seeing a woman’s left hand is shocking, and the mere thought of going topless is absolutely scandalous. The standard wear for a light-eyed woman is a dress that covers her from neck to toe, including an extra-long sleeve to cover her left hand completely. While dark-eyed women often wear a glove so they can work, light-eyed women doing the same is considered almost as shocking as exposing the hand. With that kind of cultural background, why should we assume our modern standards of physical contact are any more similar to theirs than our standards of dress?
* A man and a woman are expected never to be alone together, unless they are married.
* Dalinar feels terribly guilty for kissing Navani, though he does decide not to regret it.
* We’ve never seen Adolin alone with one of the women he’s courting; everything is done in public. (That’s kind of a definition of “courting” as opposed to “dating,” actually.)
* Even so much as touching a man with her safehand is an act reserved for a woman’s family only.
Those kind of cultural mores are completely foreign to us, so it seems to me unreasonable to assume that kissing is as common to them as it is to us. Clearly, it’s not. While it may seem “a simple thing” to you, in the Alethi culture, it’s not simple at all. It’s reserved for a much higher level of commitment than our modern world can comprehend.
Several of you are talking about Adolin should have lost his “childhood hero worship” of his dad by now. For a normal child / parent relationship, this would be true. From hero to a person with flaws. But we are not dealing with a normal relationship.
Dalinar is living legend on Roshar!
If my dad was Captain America, I would still be hero worshiping him.
Dalinar as the “Black Thorne”, is the ideal Vorin male. He was their Captain America. He was the country’s hero!
Until he went public with his visions. Then Adolin had a much larger issue with his father. But then he learned the truth. And his aunt basically proved that: “Daddy wasn’t going insane. Daddy is now talking to God.”
So how many of you would still be hero worshiping your dad if he was a true living hero, who became a prophet of God?
I would see my dad as hero still.
@107 I hear you, but from my reading perspective, what goes on between Dalinar and Adolin is much more than respect towards his elder. He sees his father as the greatest, the strongest, the best man in the entire universe and complains not everyone shares his vision. How can they not see it? How can they not see how amazing my Father is? As for teenagers, I did not state Adolin should have rebelled, but he should have had the maturity to look back, rationally, at who the Blackthorn truly was and make up his own mind about it. But no. Adolin does not know the truth, Adolin never revisited history: he is too hung up on his childhood imagery of his father to dare. Again, it is not realistic a 25-26 years old never went through this phase. We all do, no matter our culture, our religion, our era. It is not about “lack of respect” or “sending the old man to hell”, it is about positioning yourself against the teachings you have received as opposed to meekly absorbed it as children do. Everyone, everyone will do this, sooner or later. We have seen Kaladin do it in WoK, we have seen Shallan do it, we have seen Jasnah do it, heck we have even seen Renarin do it, but Adolin? Nope. It can pass, for a young man, but a mid-twenties one, it is a harder pill to digest. It is even worst now we kow many Radiants would simply disagree with Dalinar’s rules pertaining his ban on dueling.
Physical appearances: men change a lot in between 20 and 25 years of age. At 20, many still retain a boyish look, but it is usually gone by the time they are 25. You can usually physically tell if a man is near 20 or past his mid-twenties, but it is not so true for women, I agree. So for Adolin to called looking “youthful” or having “youthful face” by many observers, implies he is not that old. If he were 25, people would just say he is a young man somewhere in his twenties.
Yes there are cultural differences, but if Adolin is indeed 25-26, they are not sufficient to explain his behavior with Shallan. By that age, no matter the world he grew up in, he should have grown confident enough to be more forward about intimacy. The arguments brought forward are not strong enough and require an incredible mental exercise to make the character plausible.
Over all, Adolin would work better as a 20-21 years old character. I was willing to accept 22-23, but 25-26 just demands too much hypothesis to make it work.
As I said a few times, there are people who came forward stating their reverse engineering process led us to believe the Rosharian years were longer than the Earth years which led us to age all the characters accordingly. Brandon approved as it made for better world building, but the downsite is it makes for poorer character building. I now have to make so many mental contortions to accept the characters as they are written, it truly dampens my enjoyment. Of course, I could just ignore the issue and keep using the book age, but it would be the same as asking the world-builder fans to ignore the issue about the planet and keep on reading. This is canon and I cannot ignore canon, but this canon does not work with the text book at hand. Not for me. I therefore have to reposition my entire analysis of each characters now they are 3-4 years older, because these were crucial 3-4 years.
@108: Adolin’s vision of his father is not shared by everyone. They do not all consider him a great man, they tend to see him as man to be feared, which is quite different than Adolin’s admiring eyes.
FYI, just thought of a new one, how about Lift who is 13 but keeps saying she is 10? Not plausible if she is 14.5 years old.
Well, I guess we each have our limitations on what we can accept.
@Many I had not seen the WOB about the day length being different. Bah. There goes my math. Then there is the question of the length of an hour. Now I really just want to ask BWS what the actual time ratio is compared to Earth/Scadrial.
@111 crapaflapnasti
Do you mean Earth to Roshar, or Scadrial or both? I’m not sure if Brandon has ever said there was any appreciable difference in the length of a year between Earth and Scadrial or not.
For Earth to Roshar Alice already asked (see comment 87). It’s apparently 1:1.1 so the characters are technically 10 % older than their given age if converted into Earth years, but probably not “older” than their given ages physically or mentally due to various differences in biological makeup, environmental factors, culture, etc.
In other words a 17-year-old Rosharan is probably more similar to a 17-year-old Earthling than say a 19-year-old even though he or she would technically be 19 in Earth years (or at least more similar if you can get past the various hair, skin and eye color combinations said teenager may come with that do not exist naturally on Earth).
@110: There is no arguments that will convince me these are appropriate ages for the characters we have been presented unless Brandon himself comes forward and explains everything better in a plausible way.
However, I am disappointed to see my concerns on the plausibility of the characters ages are considered less important than the concerns world builders had on the year length on Roshar. Surely I am not the only one with issues on this one.
Ooooh! There is a red line marking the spot where the unread comments for me start! Love it!
On Roshar/Earth ages: I can imagine a 20 year old Kaladin behaving alternatively like a teenager and world-weary cynic. His behavior when he was young works OK in Roshar age. Converting to Earth age just makes it very confusing, and their reaction to the situation unbelievable. The age thing does not bother me so much *shrugs*. Wetlandernw said, “…the ages given in the book and run with it!” – this reminds me of something Leigh Butler used in WOT rereads – “It’s the magic, stupid”.
@wcarter: Yes, I didn’t do the conversion. It didn’t even bother me (still doesn’t). Dalinar giving up his shardblade, Andolin staying in jail for Kaladin, Bridge4 – that’s why I read. :D
@111 crapaflapnasti: “Length of an hour” > Hilarious!
@@@@@ 61. FenrirMoridin: I thought that he had been drawing and using stromlight unconsciously, too. Makes a lot of sense that his arm still functions – it’s probably healed completely from the inside, but like Kaladin, he has been conditioned to believe in scars, so the external scars are not healed by stormlight.
About the ship: We know what Dalinar and Navani think about Jasnah. And if Jasnah thought a girl was good enough for Adolin, they would have definitely considered her, too. They might have thought that Shallan might turn out to be opinionated like Jasnah, but they would also be sure that Jasnah would not have picked a simpering, preening girl with no thought but her looks.
@Gepeto: I agree with you, I really do, that it does not work. But I am going with ‘it’s the magic, stupid’ reasoning. Here is something for you to ponder over: I come from a place where a girls’ first period is celebrated akin to a sweet sixteen, where showing your midriff/waist is just fine, but a short skirt is scandalous, where a 19 year old would be considered a bride, but a 30 year old will ask their parents for permission before buying a home. I am not writing this to support one faction or the other, or to defend Sanderson or state that he messed the ages up… my intention is this: When cultures on the same planet have such a big differences in what is considered mature and acceptable behavior, the differences between Roshar and Earth is more conceivable. I hope it helps you, because when something like this bugs you, it takes the joy out of reading. Until Sanderson & team address this, you can shrug it off (to certain extent!) like me.
Also, Wetlander, do you remember when LeighB mentioned Spaceships/inter-galactic ships? Having malfunctioning parts made them more believable and all that? We have accepted Stormlight and non-living thing having souls, but everyone is so into figuring out the ages! :D
Hopefully this will be my last major comment on this subject.
The WoB about Kaladin being “23 or something like that” was in response to a character question; someone was concerned that Kaladin’s age seemed inadequate for his experience, knowledge and training levels. Brandon’s answer, as paraphrased by the person doing the signing report, is this:
The differential allows for Kaladin to have had the time to accumulate that experience, but his response wasn’t addressing the question of physiological, emotional, or other developmental differences between Rosharan and Earth humans.
In my opinion, though, it’s simply unprofitable to base our understanding of the characters on what would be expected of an Earth human after the same number of life-seconds have passed. Why should they be the same? As noted multiple times, the differences in culture and physiology are significant. For example: Have you noticed how the Shin are referred to as having big, round eyes? It’s not because they have abnormally large eyes – it’s because they don’t have the epicanthic fold most Rosharans do. To quote a Reddit AMA response,
Would you apply exactly the same expectations of physical changes at specific ages to every single ethnic group on Earth? I certainly wouldn’t. I don’t expect complete consistency within the same ethnic group, much less between different ones, and that’s just on this little planet. When you have a planet as different from ours as Roshar…
Brandon has shown us plenty of physical differences between ourselves and the Rosharan peoples, and he’s shown us plenty of cultural differences as well. The idea that there could be an inherent conflict between world-building and character-building, or between the science and the characters, doesn’t fit with what I’ve seen of his work; when he designs a world, the environment, the culture, and the characters all have to flow logically from – and to – one another.
Instead of assuming that Brandon screwed it up, why not assume that any perceived disconnect between a character’s age and your own expectation is due to physiological and cultural differences? It’s a better balance of “realistic character” and “fantasy world” than convincing yourself that a character is not believable because you’ve never personally met anyone who matches the description.
What stands out to me in that WoB Wetlandernw quoted above (well the paraphrasing of it) is how Sanderson’s first part was, of course, to bring up that Kaladin seems the way he is more because of the life he’s led, which is really more than adequate to answer the question.
For all the differences between the Rosharan humans and regular ones (and oh boy does that diminish the crazy variety we already have), it’s pretty clear that they still have some grasp of a yearly cycle (since the Weeping gives them a specific focal point) – thus when we’re presented with their ages in Rosharan years, it seems fair to me that socially it is similar to our own progression, and more importantly, that we see overwhelmingly that what really affects how a person’s age seems is the life experiences that have shaped it and how they responded.
Kaladin has both experienced a lot and let’s it weigh heavily on him – Shallan may not have experienced as much overall, but she lived plenty of harrowing years – but she doesn’t let that show, blocking off what she can (both statements are simplifications but I think my point is made somewhat clear).
I’m happy I was a part of the Storm Cellar when this came up – it’s interesting to see how each of us looks at this single detail and responds to it differently!
I’m going to take this positive outlook into the next chapter reread later today, where Shallan’s father will take it and stomp on it with his angry drunkenness!
Yay!
so when in this book they say he’s 19, he’s not actually 19, he’s more like, I can’t remember the exact equation, he’s like 23 or something like that.
“Something like” is not very descriptive and using the established equation would bring Kaladin’s age to 21 years old and not 23, which to me still is a large difference. Therefore Brandon does not look too deeply into the age of his characters if he is ready to estimate Kaladin’s age at 23…. Or it is he does not see the difference, which would be a shame as I do see the physical difference between our new flock of interns (21-22 years of age) and my mid-twenties colleagues.
Using Brandon’s approximate calculations would bring Adolin to 28 years old, which is nearly funny. I personally thought Kaladin’s book age of 20 years old worked well given his hardship, it is not as if he was ready to take over the leadership of the army: he struggles with his 1000 men. This is challenge for him, as expected.
Perhaps someone could ask Brandon about it. How come Adolin at 25-28 years old in Earth years still has the physical, emotional and psychological development of a 20 years old? And if he does not consider it to be the case, then is he aware the description he gave us matches a much younger character? Unless his intent was to write an immature buffoon or an over-grown teenager, which would seriously disappoint me. I thought Elhokar was the one fitting these shoes. In my head, Adolin was just young.
It is true he did not say how they aged compared to Earth humans, but still. This will forever remain a sour point for me as I cannot read the characters as I used to. My entire perception of Adolin has now changed to the negative which is a shame as he was one of the most interesting characters (to me personally), being so different than the typical fantasy character (moody, broody, introspective with a terrible past).
Gepeto @119 – Once again, that “23 or something” was at a book signing. Have you ever been to one of those things? There would have been several hundred people there, most of them asking questions about every book he’s ever published and some he hasn’t, as well as random writing questions and personal anecdotes. This was a good two weeks into the tour, so he’d been doing this nearly every night, and some days as well, plus flying all over the country, sleeping in a different hotel practically every night. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t claim to be able to remember details like that – especially if they aren’t terribly significant to the plot – when someone threw it at me off the cuff in that setting. So he specifically said “I don’t remember the exact equation” and then said “23 or something like that.”
The conversion factor of 1.1 is solidly confirmed, and makes Kaladin’s equivalent earth-age 22 – which fits quite easily in the range of “23 or something like that.” It makes Adolin’s earth-age 25 plus maybe a couple of months; there’s no way you can pretend that Brandon is telling us that he’s 28. That’s sheer, unwarranted exaggeration, and the only way you can get to it is to pretend that “23 or something like that” means “pushing 25” – which you know perfectly well is not what he meant.
At this point, it sounds like you’re stretching things to the breaking point to prove you have a right to be upset about the age differential, because you can’t let go of your expectations for a 25-year-old with your own culture and physiology. I’m not saying you can’t do that, since obviously you can, but you’re only spoiling your own enjoyment. Seriously, I would suggest that you find a way to rationalize it (and you’ve been given plenty of ways to do so) so that you can read the Rosharan ages and think of the same earth age, and not think about it any further.
Yep. ^^^
Well, I’m late to the show here (but hey, at least I managed to read this post and all the comments, which hasn’t been the case for the better part of this reread!).
@119: Adding to what others (Wetlander, BraidTug, wcarter…sorry whoever I missed) have said, not only is there the cultural, environmental, and biological (Roshar vs Earth…I’d say there’s plenty of differences to be found between humans) differences, but examine the quote Wetlander included in 117. Kaladin is the way he is due to the events of his life. Cannot the same be said for Adolin? As a prince of Alethkar, he wouldn’t have experienced the same hardships that Kaladin and others would have; he wouldn’t have been put into many situations that force him to reevaluate what he knows, or thinks he knows. Being Dalinar’s son, his life might not have been as cushy as those of other High-Prince’s, due to the bar that Dalinar sets, but it’s far from trying.
Personally I’m opposite Gepeto entirely — I was really glad when Brandon established the 1.1 ratio, not because of worldbuilding concerns, but because I didn’t find Kaladin and Shallan entirely believable at their given ages. Outside the areas of life in which their traumas hold them back, I find Shallan too mature to be a 17 year old, and Kaladin too mature to be a 20 year old.
I grant you that Tien, on the other hand, makes more sense as his given Rosharan age. But he’s an exception; the other characters make as much sense or more sense to me with the 1.1 multiplied factor to their age. Especially Sadeas worrying about being 50.
As for Adolin … I thought his discomfort with kissing Shallan was specific to her. I think he did a normal amount of kissing in his younger years, but then came to associate it with a disappointing breakup soon after and has therefore become much more hesitant about it. And this could be compounded by the differences between Shallan and his other relationships. I base these speculations on the scene in TWoK where he deals with a half-naked prostitute, and turns down her offer of a coital session; in that scene he is very mature and composed, and not rattled by seeing her naked bosom or being offered sex like I think a totally inexperienced and immature man would be.
TL;DR regarding Adolin: one’s personal experiences matter MUCH more than one’s age when it comes to comfort levels with romantic relationships.
@120: Alas no, I have never been to a book signing. I unfortunately live in an area not typically visited by Brandon and my family/professional obligations prevent me from traveling to one of those. I thus have to refer to those who are able to attained.
I am a character lover: I read book for the characters, so anything pertaining character development drags my attention. I mentally take note of everything I need to dress an accurate (or as accurate as possible) portrayal of the characters. Things such as physical description and age are crucial to my processing, in fact they are so crucial it is hard for me to comprehend how the author could not be sure. I understand he cannot remember everything from the top of his head, but age is so important to me, it would be the last thing I would forget. So from my perspective, it is hard to comprehend. Not that I blame Brandon, I don’t, not at all, but it just happens to be a subject I hold close to my heart, hence my potential lack of rationality.
As for my own enjoyment, as I have stated, this is a major issue, for me. It will take me a very long time to get over it and to accept it. I do not know if I will be able to read the characters as I used to, not without further input from Brandon. Age is something I find crucial in a character, change it by just a few years, and you have a completely different character. I just cannot ignore it, but I will not press the matter furthermore.
@123: Shallan is very immature… I never read her as being mature in any way. She thinks and acts like a little girl… Kaladin does seem older, but he has a hard life to back him up in there, so I deemed it plausible. As for Adolin, I seriously doubt he has any relevant experience with girls other than the occasional peck on the cheek. I have a completely different reading of the prostitute scene… Adolin talks confident, but rarely is, on the inside, but let’s not get there. This thread will die anyway with chapter 39 now being up.
@107 Wetlandernw, I had the same reaction to the ‘hero worship” concern that Gepeto expresses. Hero worship is defined as “the foolish or excessive adulation for an individual.” There isn’t anything foolish or excessive in the respect and approval and love that Adolin has for his father. I agree our contemporary pop culture is all about rejecting our parents so that we can stand up and be ourselves, but IRL, if parents are decent to their kids and love and respect them, then most kids return that regardless of their age. I’ve been parenting for over 22 years now, and of all the kids I’ve known, the vast majority of them continue to love and respect and emulate their parents into their young adulthoods (as far as it’s gone so far for me). Dalinar treats Adolin with deep respect and affection. Adolin returns it.
I haven’t finished reading all the comments yet, so if someone else has said this, I’m sorry for repeating.
When we are talking about Adolin, Shallan, and even Kaladin, we are talking about a subset of the Alethi culture which is priviledged enough to follow HighVorin dictates on civility, sexual conduct, and public manners. Kaladin’s upbringing was much more light-eyes than dark eyes, as evidenced by the way the other villagers treated them. The rest of the villagers probably did kiss at an earlier age, left home at an earlier age, and had a lot more day to day, stay alive issues that matured them a lot younger than either of those three did.
Even with the traumas that Shallan and Kaladin experienced as youths, they didn’t have to work from dawn to dusk to eat, they didn’t have to expend every ounce of energy in survival, so they didn’t have to ‘mature’ in the same ways that the bulk of the society’s inhabitants do. I think this is the important issue that is being missed by the characters in the book, even by Kaladin, because all the big traumatic dramatic issues portrayed all the way to the end of the book are, yes, important to the Alethi elite. But the people of Alethi are dying of starvation, lack of infrastructure supports, and urupation of their people (their workforce) by the Alethi nobles’ gem game. And it’s only going to get worse…
With the new desing likely almost nobody will ever see my belated commet, but then I don’t really contribute anything relevant and I don’t have the proper source for you to check it. But in my personal BWS file about calendar (gleaned from serveral sources, coppermind and 17th shard) I have noted the following about calendar:
– 5 days per week, 10 weeks per month, 10 month per year. = 500d per year
– 20 hours a day, and the hours were a minute or two shorter than ours
if we take 1minute or two away the ratio slighly changes:
Roshar: 500 * 20 * 59 = 590’000 min (or 580’000 with 58min/h)
Earth: 365.25 * 24 * 60 = 525’960 min
–> ratio: previously given (by Xaladin @52) 1.14, ratio with minute adaption: 1.122-1.10
The difference is in the second decimal place, but over the years it adds up ;) making Shallan’s 17.5 Rosharan years (RY) into 19 instead of 20 (as calculated by Xaladin) and Jasnahs 34 RY into 37.5.
Edit to add: sorry, though week to late my therad ended at comment 74.
Now I see that Wetlander @89 resolved it. Thanks Alice. Obviously the hour has about 58 equivalent minutes ;)
Oh, I’d for gotten about the difference in the length of an hour, though! All I did was check and see what conversion factor Peter was using. :)
Heh. I just noticed something funny. This thread had the most intense discussion we’ve had in a while, and some of it got a bit crazy. I just saw the text I’d used for the “read more” link:
“She’s watching the zoo, obviously.”
How appropriate. :)
(Okay, even more appropriate to the latest kerfuffle on the Hugos, but that’s not even worth watching anymore.)
Yeah, we went a bit nuts on this one. Sorry about that…
Hey, I’m never sorry when we go nuts, as long as no one starts attacking! I love the interaction and the development of community that we get when we try to work out something weird.
I am sorry. This is my fault. I am the one who pushed the issue to no end. I get really emotional on certain aspects of SA.
Gepeto, no fault. It’s discussions like this Chapter’s that make the Reread interesting.