Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive

Not to mention, as noted, Maya is a Cultivationspren, and he clearly has a bond with her.

I guess I always just imagined Adolin as more of a football player than a hockey player, if that makes sense.

So a genuine complaint about this book: I was really not impressed with the flashbacks. They weren't the heart of the book like the previous ones. Not only were there no major reveals or real character moments, they barely even paralleled the themes of the present day sections. They felt far too perfunctory, just "this is Venli's book, have some Venli flashbacks."

I think I can see what they were going for, but yeah, they didn't work nearly as well as in previous books.

Yeah; from the video Brandon posted on his Youtube channel the initial intention was for these flashbacks to be the reveal of the Parshendi culture.

It seems like when he folded most of that into WoR it left him with the options of either breaking the structure of the books, changing the focus character, or having the Flashback chapters not really serve much of a purpose. I think it's probably made more of a weakness coming the book after Dalinar's since you follow the best use of them with the worst.

Really, this overall just... doesn't feel like Venli's book. She represents the themes of balance and collaboration, but other than that she doesn't get much. And it also only barely feels like a Willshaper book; we only got a tiny bit on their powers and Ideals, and the themes of the book only touch on those Ideals. As a Stormlight book, it's great, but as a Venli book it's... not.

In the end, this feels like Navani's book, and a second Bondsmith book.

One thing i´m confused by. With it now being confirmed that the Spren went along willingly with the recreance, what´s going on with the hatred of deadeye Shardblades? I could understand it if they just screamed because of the pain, but Oathbringer screamed less for Dalinar, which the Stormfather attributed to it remembering Dalinar valueing his oath to give it away. I mean the Stormfather could be just wrong, but then why is it screaming less...

Could the shardblades be screaming because they're being wielded by the wrong person? Leading to less screaming when, like Adolin, they start to form a bond with the blade as a person, rather than a tool?

Or it still hurts despite them having gone along willingly. Their existence is torture, the fact that they were themselves part of the cause doesn't help much. Oathbringer presumably screams less because Dalinar giving it up healed it a little, just like how Adolin is healing Maya a little.

And the Stormfather was wrong about a lot of things, because at that point he wasn't really his own entity yet, so apparently the Radiants didn't see the need to tell him anything. So a lot of the stuff he talks about is actually just supposition on his part, but spoken with confidence.

I’m just curious as to what effect other godmetals have on fabrials. Allomantic metals clearly have an effect similar to their effect in Allomancy, so what would tapping Atium to a gem with a captured spren do? Can you create time alter effects if you integrate cadmium and bendalloy into a fabrial?

And what is the allomantic effect of Raysium? Actually, I’m glad to see the godmetals have actual mechanical properties in themselves since all we’ve really seen Atium be used for is burning, though Etmetal seems implied to be able to power a metalic art effect after it’s been ‘primed’ by an Allomancer or feruchemist.

And is the reason spren get EVENLY divided between gemstones the same reason the investiture in a metal mind is evenly divided when the metal mind is physical divided? Huh, could this lead to conjoined metalminds? Will we ever get Harmonylight? SO MANY QUESTIONS! I really hope someone asks these on the next signing tour.

Harmonylight? Hell, that makes me wonder if we're going to get War as a shard.

Wouldn't it be interesting if you could help deadeyes by giving them up, the way Oathbringer may have? That would be pretty thematic even if Adolin does eventually become an edgedancer, because it'd mean more for him to bond with Maya if she has the choice to come back to him or not.

My bet is the deadeye is the one who has to say the Words.

This book did make me interested in all the potential Shard combinations. Again, I don't think we're actually going to be seeing Shards combining, but the combined rhythms are a way to show those without going whole-hog and combining the actual Shards.

Of course, the names aren't guaranteed to be directly related to the name of the theoretical Shard. There's no reason for the combination of Cultivation and Honor to be called Towerlight besides the existence of Urithiru. I guess Sanderson couldn't find a way to make "sciencelight" sound good, so he went for a more bland and obviously artificial name.

My question about the godmetals is do the properties change when the holder changes? We know what Raysium does, but will Taravangianium work differently?

According to the Coppermind, the metal's properties can change, but not its overall function. I imagine that if Vin had kept Preservation, for instance, that Vinium would have different physical properties, but still give people allomancy.

I really want to see an allomancer burn Raysium now.

I just realized there's probably a lot more Allomantic metals than previously thought.

We knew of the basic 16 and that each had alloys with both Atium and Lerasium for 48, and likely with the other godmetals for 256, but given that gaseous Investiture of each shard can mix solid Investiture of each should do the same meaning each godmetal can form an alloy with all other god metals leaving us with 512 possible combinations. Wich is way more than I think Brandon can come up with distinct effects for especially since Raysium is already overlapping the Hemalurgic effect of nicrosil.

Edited by Jaustin89* on Dec 7th 2020 at 11:12:26 AM

The thing about Allomancy as a magic system is that it was designed by Preservation, who incorporated Lerasium and Atium into it. Any other godmetal is definitely NOT part of the system and investiture systems interact very strangely. It'd probably work but side effects seem likely.

Anyway, I do agree that Venli's flashbacks were a huge letdown. All of the best scenes were either Eshonai or Venli's perspective on things we already knew. Really should have been someone else's book, put Venli's flashbacks post-timeskip so that we can see the contrast between old Listener culture and new Listener culture.

Best thing about the book: realizing that Navani [spoiler:will be able to build spaceships based on replicating the Sibling. It produces light on its own, moderates heat, pressure, climate and oxygen, self-repairs, and has doors that whoosh open and shut? Spaceship. Each ship probably gets its own Bondsmith as captain, with a sympathetic bond to the ship, and scores of other Radiants as high-ranking crew and specialists.]]

Apparently allomancy is tapping into innate properties of the metals themselves. That's why in this book we find out about how fabrials use different types of metal in their construction.

I highly doubt a being like the Sibling can just be created by anything less powerful than a Shard. Even a less powerful version i don´t think is highly likely, but then again humans also managed to either create or change the Oathgate spren, who seem more powerful than even regular radiant spren. Also Urithiru is not a specaship

I mean, just because Urithiru isn't a spaceship doesn't mean that similar principles can't be used to create spaceships. Even if not every ship will have a Sibling-level spren and a Bondsmith, it's still something to look into.

That might be the way to do it: spaceship spren similar to the oathgate spren, and possibly a crewmember bonded to them. Though actually, Rosharans creating new types of spren deliberately is kind of a mindbending idea. Do you think Honor did that?

Edited by Durazno on Dec 16th 2020 at 8:33:09 AM

Everyone seen the lovely livestream with the lovely chicken? :D

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AF8nuJte1o8&feature=youtu.be

ROW & livestream spoilers: Renarlain confirmed!

The Sibling manifests in the world as the tower, right? Should be entirely possible for it to exude more of itself. Just cut off the new growth from the whole and you have a Sibling-ship.

Are you imagining that as creating a new spren, like cutting a growth off of a plant, or would the Sibling become a vast intelligence across dozens of ships?

Maybe I'm not looking for it, but I absolutely did not see any hint of Renarlain in ROW. Maybe now that I know what to look for I'll see it more on rereads.

I also hadn´t noticed it, but after reading about it? Yeah, i can 100% see that.

I haven't picked up on it, but then, Renarin tends to be Out of Focus.