Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive

I'll be interested to see if Zahel ever encounters Szeth and his new friend.

I wanna know what book investiture-users from other planets start bigass fightscenes. Please, please, PLEASE let there be a Stormlight vs Metallic Arts fight in this book...!

Speaking of which, I had an idle thought about Breaths, which might be obvious, but it only just occurred to me.

If someone from Nalthis without the ability to alter their appearance came to Roshar, would they seem supernaturally hearty and oddly vividly colored? Would losing their Breath reduce them to the level of an ordinary human from another world? Or does something about the shard on Nalthis give humans the ability to transfer/lose a vital part of themselves that people on other worlds take for granted?

I just had a wicked idea. What if Ialai proposes that, to heal the divide between House Kholin and House Sadeas, there should be a marriage between Adolin, heir to House Kholin, and herself, the widow Sadeas? It would just be so deliciously awkward for so many reasons.

If she suspects anything, she could also get information from Adolin's reaction, too.

Wanna bet this actually happens?

Whatever she's got planned, I'm excited to see it.

On another note, I find it interesting that Gavilar namedrops some apparent Shin as a great conqueror, given the modern Shin attitude towards warriors.

Drabs take a hit to their emotions, right? Nalthis natives don't seem noticeably more emotional than baseline humans, so that seems like a point in favor of everyone having Breath.

Well, they had to get the Honorblades somehow.

It's hard to get a bead on emotions when the book is totally full of Nalthans - like any difference between them and the baseline we might put down to the style of the book, or the time Sanderson was writing it, or so forth. Nevertheless, that's a good point - it's similar to the symptoms of depression, isn't it?

edited 10th Oct '17 8:48:50 PM by Durazno

The impression I've gotten from Word of God is that life (sentient life, at a bare minimum) is itself a product of Investiture, so all people must have some Investiture in them. The ability to do magic is the result of having extra Investiture, which people can normally only do if they take it in from an outside source: on Roshar, people breathe in stormlight; on Nalthis, they take Investiture from other people to increase their own; on Sel people use various methods to harness the Dor, which is sort of free-floating Investiture.

On Scadrial some people are born with an inherent ability to do magic, as a result of Preservation choosing to give up some of his power in order to increase how much Investiture is in humanity, but that doesn't seem to be how it works on most other Shardworlds.

edited 10th Oct '17 11:00:54 PM by RavenWilder

Can't recall the details of the symptoms, I'm afraid.

Anyway, if Naltheans have an emotions buff, then rules of storytelling say that we should not have to ask whether they do or not. A novel set in a world where everyone is super emotional should have the characters all acting super emotional and narrative bits indicating how history and society have been affected by people being super emotional, else why establish the trait in the first place. Further, why have the one book you put on the internet for free in a gamble that it'll get people excited enough to buy all your stuff be the one book where people are psychologically abnormal without warning the reader that it's on purpose?

More tellingly yet, on multiple occasions non-Drabs interact with Lightsong without even trying to throttle him.

edited 10th Oct '17 11:10:29 PM by rikalous

I'm not actually sure that's true. We know that humanity predates the Shards and that humans live even in systems where no Shards are present. We've also seen hints of animals that use Investiture (for example, the greatshells and skyeels, both of which do things that should be physically impossible and are associated with spren that the people of Roshar don't understand, suggesting that their physics-defying shenanigans is enabled by something similar to the nahel bond).

If you want to get into a major discussion about the nature of Investiture, though, we should probably take it to the main Brandon Sanderson thread, as it's definitely a broader topic than Stormlight Archive specifically.

Drabs are pretty much depressed, yeah. Their senses are muted, they're less motivated, they're generally downcast and unenergetic.

You're assuming all Investiture comes from the Shards, rather than them just being a ultra-huge sources of it.

But, to get back on topic, do you suppose the giant, long-legged thing Dalinar saw in the highstorm was one of the Unmade, or just a piece of Roshar's ultra-weird wildlife?

Thunderklast-relative?

We saw them in one of the earlier books too, right? Long-leggety beasties in the highstorm, I mean.

Refresh my memory?

I believe in the first book Dalinar briefly sees the outline of some vast creature during a flash of lightning inside of a Highstorm.

I had always assumed that it was one aspect of the Stormfather, but we have seen enough of him to probably safely discard that theory.

EDIT: My mistake, I was misremembering. We first get a glimpse of those creatures in chapter 49 when Shallan and Adolin are having their date and Shallan lingers to get a good look at a Highstorm.

edited 11th Oct '17 12:13:25 PM by GutstheBerserker

Also, I think Kaladin sees them in the scene where he and Shallan are sheltering from the storm.

A thread about such beings.

edited 11th Oct '17 12:05:14 PM by Durazno

Word of God is that worlds without Shards still have Investiture, just less of it, and it naturally collects in non-human living things. On First of the Sun magical worms are eaten by birds, who bond with humans and grant a talent. On Ashyn microbes and viruses make humans sick but also grant them powers. Those are the only non-Shardworlds we know of right now, except for Threnody, which is screwed up because a couple Shards fought there.

Thought: the strange Spren with the Parshmen is yellow while all Voidspren so far have been red. I wonder if it's either Cultivation getting off her ass...or Autonomy. It's been mentioned in Arcanum Unbound that Bavadin is a hipocrite in blocking off access to her own Shardworld but meddling in others. Might be a Chekovs Gun?

Cause Odium getting loose doesn't sound like something Autonomy approves of. I sort of doubt he'd respect her Do Not Disturb.

Trying to help freed slaves is kinda fitting for the idea of Autonomy, isn't it? But does this spren's MO fit the way Autonomy works in their own work? I'm not too familiar.

Freeing them and then asserting that they do what they say? Sort of sounds like Bavadin what we know, imo

We've so far only have mentions of Autonomy, no direct appearance yet. Might change with the next few White Sands volumes

edited 13th Oct '17 4:59:55 AM by 3of4

I like the idea that she's an Autonomy spren. That would also explain why she hasn't just possessed their leader, who they would be more likely to listen to than some random spren. Unless she needs a highstorm or everstorm to possess parshmen. I guess we'll see when it comes in a few days.

And they also mentioned "distant rhythms." So they are there, they just haven't quite gotten used to listening to them yet.

New chapters are out.

edited 17th Oct '17 6:10:03 AM by GutstheBerserker