Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive

Hundreds of creationspren appeared around Shallan when she sketched Pattern the first time, "capturing" him. None have appeared during her illusions, but they sometimes appear when she does the pre-sketching. Besides, her illusions are kinda low-level at the moment. Kaladin didn't attract windspren until he did the really hardcore "fly thousands of feet in the air" gravity manipulation. I assume Shallan's pedestrian disguises, which can't even speak on their own, just aren't interesting enough for the creationspren.

It might be interesting seeing Syl and Pattern interact, though I have a feeling after their first meeting they might just avoid each other. I'm kinda dreading Shallan finding out Kaladin killed Helarin. Not because she'll be mad at him, but because she'll probably forgive him disturbingly quickly.

• Kaladin: I killed your brother. I'm so sorry.
• Shallan: Well, that still puts me ahead at two to one.
• Kaladin: Two what?
• Shallan: Members of my family killed.

I don't recall; does Kaladin actually know that the shardbearer he killed was Shallan's brother?

Yes. During their time in the storm, she said Amaram killed her brother, and he connected the dots. He had only said that Amaram killed his men to get his Shards, glossing over the fact that Kaladin was the one who killed the Shardbearer, and Shallan didn't make the connection.

That seems right then. Having creationspren show up while you're cloaking yourself would be almost as much a giveaway as glowing yourself. Plus there's Pattern saying that his people "change slowly and always change in the same way", and what do creationspren do when they show up but exactly that. Pattern still seems a lot more dismissive of them than Syl seems of the windspren, but he's no honorspren.

And I almost see that as how that conversation would go, except there's an entire book's worth of angsting for Kaladin there. No way Sanderson's letting that go.

Yeah, Kaladin puts it together and is very thankful he didn't mention who killed the Shardbearer.

edited 7th Feb '16 11:26:53 AM by Watashiwa

I think so far we haven't had that many cases of Poor Communication Kills (just intentional keeping of secrets) and I hope that continues.

Here it's the opposite though, it's the miscommunication that's keeping Shallan from plotting to knife Kaladin.

Considering Helaran was an enemy combatant threatening Kal's life on the battlefield, I'm sure she can forgive him. (As someone said above, she's still ahead in killing members of her family so it's all good)

Considering Helaran was kinda her ideal big brother and the one person in her family who appeared to have escaped the fuck-up-ed-ness all the rest have, I don't know if she'll be that rational.

Speaking of, why was Helaran looking for the Skybreakers? Given Nalan is killing every Surgebinder on Roshar "to prevent the Desolation", I can't help but feel that particular rabbit hole is going to go even deeper.

Helaran was probably seeking justice against his father, but Mraize promised to answer that question. Taravingian also thought Helaran was a Surgebinder, which is almost certainly wrong, but he had to get the idea from somewhere.

As for Nale and his Skybreakers, my guess is that he was basically building an unpowered version of the Skybreakers to fix a world he saw as lawless without causing the Desolation. Now that the Desolation has come, I imagine he'll allow them to start bonding highspren.

I don't think Nalan is concerned about mortal laws anymore. He tells Lift that Surgebinding "could return Desolation to this world". He's not fighting for justice, he's enforcing a planet wide magic ban; hunting down surgebinders for committed crimes is just his tic, like the Herald who destroys all her depictions in art.

I think Helaran actually found the Skybreakers, and joined them to oppose the Ghostbloods. He got the Shardblade from somewhere, and the Skybreakers have shards for days. Plus he could have been at that battlefield to kill Kaladin, which explains why someone had a shardblade in a minor border conflict.

But he is concerned about mortal laws. His whole thing is trying to find a way to justify his crusade within mortal laws. I also doubt Helaran was there to kill Kaladin (he seemed completely unaware of him); either Amaram was right and he was a member of the Ghostbloods, or he was a (non-Surgebinder) Skybreaker and Amaram had no idea what he was talking about.

In other news, I got a response regarding the size of Roshar. Roughly 4000 miles East to West. Keep in mind the continental United States are about 3000 miles wide, so Roshar is about 33% larger than the US. Americans often forget that the country is big, so I believe that all the action could easily take place over that area.

The bigger question is the size of planet Roshar. We know Roshar has a .70 gravity, which (if we assume it has the same average density as Earth), means it's about 70% the size of Earth. I'm too lazy to do the actual math, but I think that means the planet has slightly less land to water ratio than Earth does, but not too much.

Was Kaladin anyone worth killing at that point?

Also, I think I'm ignoring that .7 gravity thing, because then I start nitpicking that everything should look way different, starting with humans, and that's just annoying. Another thing I'm ignoring: the WOG about 500 day years, because 26-year-old Kaladin doesn't mesh well with my mental pictures.

edited 9th Feb '16 6:35:44 PM by Ninety

Stormlight could also be justified by have a mild healing effect on everyone. Cause Investiture could probably do that. Thereby making everyone look a tad younger.

That's cool.

edited 9th Feb '16 6:39:28 PM by 32ndfreeze

Different use of concern there. He's decided the sentence due to Surgebinders and is looking for the crimes to execute the sentence on.

I don't think Helaran was there to killed "Kaladin", if he was a Skybreaker I imagine he was at the battle to eliminate the Surgebinder. I don't think he was one of the Ghostbloods given his last conversation with their father. And since none of the current Skybreakers seem to show Surgebinding abilities and given they're working to eliminate the skill from Roshar entirely, it seems likely Helaran was without a Nahel bond.

Kaladin himself? Not at all. But the only Windrunner for this Desolation is very interesting.

edited 9th Feb '16 6:55:09 PM by Watashiwa

Humans were almost certainly transplanted from another world—possibly many other worlds—and their physiology isn't quite normal. Hair color by blood purity, anyone? I have a feeling Cultivation has a hand in all that, keeping them from developing into lightworlders.

As for the years, yes each year is 500 days, but each day is shorter. In the end, it comes out to a Rosharan year being 1.1 times longer than an Earth one. So 19 year old Kaladin is about twenty-one by our standards. Not really a major difference.

Ohh, so you're saying Nale found the only honorspren who had returned, and sent Helaran to track her down and see if she had made her bond, while killing Amaram on the side. Eh, that's a theory that has merit. Not sure I agree with it, but it's interesting.

edited 9th Feb '16 10:50:32 PM by Discar

In the most recent Mistborn book, it's implied that Ruin and Preservation were working from a template when they made humans on Scadrial. I imagine it's something similar for Roshar.

Rosharan history goes back thousands of years, though. People would probably have adapted physiologically in some measure.

Anyway, who's to say there aren't any more mindless honorspren floating around as windspren?

Syl. She says several times that she's the only one who came.

....Right.

Apparently the Stormfather ordered all honorspren to stay away, and Syl was the only one to go Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!. I have been wondering if she has some way of signalling the rest of them to return, or maybe Dalinar can just tell the Stormfather to rescind the order himself.

Duranzo: The Yolenic humans were probably the templates for the Scadriens. I think it's really interesting that it's the only shardworld to have a creation myth, Rosharans know they came from somewhere else, and the Parshendi myths indicate that they were displaced by mankind as Roshar's dominant sentient life.

I think Roshar's humanity comes from basically everywhere except Scadriel. Magic tattoos seem reminiscent of Sel, the hair color screams Nalthis.

Oh yeah, that'll go over well.

Dalinar: Stormfather, allow more honorspren to enter the Physical Realm!

Stormfather: THE DAUGHTER WHO DISOBEYED NEARLY PERISHED. I WILL NOT RISK MORE TO HUMAN FALLIBILITY.

Dalinar: Please?

Stormfather: sends highstorm

edited 10th Feb '16 11:30:54 AM by Watashiwa

Words of Radiance reread chapter 70 updated yesterday, I didn't notice. Anyway, I felt this was interesting to bring up:

While racism and classism are never right no matter what direction they're pointing, it should be kept in mind that every single lighteyes Kaladin has ever met, before Dalinar, has betrayed him or just been evil from the start. Winslow was just "boring" and "not a real lighteyes," but his death indirectly ruined his life. Laral went from being his best friend to treating him like a slave. Roshone and his son were horrible from the start. Amaram did a very good job of pretending to be "an honorable lighteyes like from the stories," but turned out to be an insane Well-Intentioned Extremist. Every lighteyes Kaladin met after that was a slavemaster.

So yeah. Kaladin's treatment of Shallan isn't right, but his distrust of lighteyes is perfectly understandable. Actually, he already knows Shallan isn't an assassin ("the only danger she posed to Adolin was to his dignity"), during the chasm trip he was just at his worst, so he brought that up to try and get her to stop being insufferably cheerful.

Speaking of which, Kaladin thinking she's a silly, mindless fop isn't classism. Shallan does a very good job of pretending to be a pampered princess who never saw a day of hardship. It's just rare for anyone to confront her on it.

Amaram was the straw that broke the camel's back. Well, more like the support beam that got piled on top of the sticks already there, but it's the principle of the thing.

"You know, it would just take a straw to break this..." readies baseball bat

It's true that prejudice isn't right when it's pointed either way, but I'll echo sentiments from earlier in the thread that it's a lot more understandable from people with less power - not only because they're more likely to have had bad experiences, like Kaladin, but also because if they decide to look past their prejudice and then have their trust betrayed, it's more likely that they'll be hurt a lot worse.