Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive

Actually, more an addendum than countetpoint. I was going to argue against, then ended up agreeing lol. Editing!

I would argue he is broken or at least cracked. Not every Radiant was probably as broken as Kaladin, Shallan or Dalinar or they wouldn´t have numbered in the thousands. Renarin had a similiar childhood to Adolin the only difference being societys expectations and his slight autism. Things i could think of which may have cracked Adolin: 1. Death of his mother when he was teenager 2. seeing his father become a pathetic drunk during which time he more or less hated his own sons 3. seeing 6000 of his men die by a betrayal he saw coming, but could do nothing to prevent (with many of whom he probablyy had a personal conection) 4. death of Sureblood 5. losing control and killing sadeas and his hiding of the fact 6. seeing Elhokar die. And those are just the one i can think of at the top of my head. Just because he has a happy facade doesn´t mean he can´t be broken/cracked

I thought it was all the dirt and soil and stone of the continent, washed away in the storm and then brought back in the next one. Maybe mixed in with some of Cultivation's solid-state power, but I don't think she has anything to do with the highstorms and Investiture is supposed to always be a metal in solid form.

Sanderson has rather specifically referred to Adolin's murder of Sadeas as "snapping." Considering what that means in the context of Mistborn, I'm guessing he's open to the bond now. There was a commenter on Tor who did a point by point of how Adolin fit the Edgedancer ideals, too.

Anyone else see Szeth becoming Headmaster of Radiant Academy? After all, he DID train with all the Honorblades. At the very least, he can teach Lift to skate.

...Okay, you've sold me SCM.

I now want psudo-parental Szeth in SA 4 to Lift.

Where are my two emerald broams then? Or a Shardblade, whatever you sold for.

On a random note, anyone else get the feeling that the old Iri religion is either the memory of Adonalsium or blatant foreshadowing? Also, why the heck would Ash swear by Adonalsium?

edited 20th Nov '17 8:22:17 PM by SCMof2814

I'm hoping the next book has our heroes finally take a trip to Shinovar. Now that Szeth's joined the team, he should be able to tell them that six of the Honorblades are in Shinovar, which should make trying to get their help a priority, seeing as they're still low on Radiants.

That was my exact question. Are the Heralds from Yolen? I've had the theory on my mind for a while, but never really thought it was a serious possibility. Now... maybe.

Szeth's book is still book 5, so I expect that's when he'll do his crusade and go home. I'm sure he'll tell them about the swords, but since the Shin still have the Oathgate locked on their end and Shinovar is sheltered from highstorms, they can't just pop over there on a whim. And the Shin don't have spanreeds (the brief communication they had was through a Thaylen merchant who happened to be nearby), so they can't talk to them easily either. I think the question right now is less what the Radiants will do to the Shin and more what are the Shin going to do? Have they accepted that a Desolation is here? Are they training their own Radiants? What the hell were they congratulating Dalinar for?

I'm assuming that "congratulations" from the Shin was sarcastic.

I figure Tanavast just went "Well, not really GOD-God. Just a part of him. Adonasium is the real deal." and the Heralds rolled with it.

What slightly worries me is that we still have no clue about the Shin Stone Shamans, who are said to be powerful enough to get the Honorblade back from whoever would have managed to off Truthless Szeth.

edited 21st Nov '17 2:06:54 AM by 3of4

Does anyone else appreciate the irony of the Shin being peaceful homebodies millennia AFTER it would have done any good?

Since apparently at one point the Shin tried to conquer the world...not really

Also, Ash calls Hoid Midius, while the Letterwriting shard calls him Cephandrius, so that implies they met at different times under different names.

edited 21st Nov '17 8:45:08 AM by 3of4

Presumably Shin society is so peaceful overall because, when the rest of humanity went east to conquer the parshmen, they're the ones who stayed behind.

And I question how that attempted Shin conquest could have gone, since having seven Honorblades at a time when no other Surgebinders (save the Skybreakers, who keep to themselves) are around should make an army nigh-unbeatable. Though maybe collecting those Honorblades is what that whole invasion was about.

The timeline of the Shin invasions is unclear. It could have happened before the Recreance. Though the fact that they remember the name of the man who led the invasions implies it was more recent than that—probably still centuries back, but not millennia back. Hm... we don't know much about the politics of Shinovar. I suppose the easiest answer is that the Stone Shamans refused to back the invasion, so they didn't have access to the Honorblades.

Oh, and minor nitpick: They would have had eight Honorblades during the time of the invasions, and possibly nine (depending on when Nale retrieved his Blade).

edited 21st Nov '17 7:55:01 PM by Discar

So, I just got the book and started reading through it. I haven't finished yet, but I thought I would share some thoughts about where I am so far. In no particular order:

Interlude 1 : Holy crap, Eshonai's death! What an anticlimactic way to end what everyone thought was going to be a major character in future novels. Though I have my suspicions that she might not be actually completely dead.

Chapter 41: Teft's addiction was brilliantly revealed and handled so well. It's going to be fun re-reading his passages in Way of Kings in light of this new information. In general I liked the whole A Day in the Limelight that we got for the members of Bridge Four.

Chapter 51: Man, the world-buidling in the Stormlight Archive is just so good. I loved the detail that there are only empty flats between Kholinar and it's closest suburbs as a way of exposing any potential besieging armies to Highstorms.

End of Part 2: talk about a Wham Episode. We finally get a glimpse at Odium himself. I didn't expect Dalinar to launch his challenge so early in the series, let alone for the challenge to actually end up being refused.

So far I'm in part 3. How cool it is that we finally get a sort-of Title Drop in the form of the crystal-library in Urithiru? We finally know what the "Stormlight Archive" refers to.

I haven't gone back to read the spoilered posts in this thread, so sorry if I am just re-hashing things that have already been discussed ad-nauseum. I'll swing back and check them out once I'm done.

edited 22nd Nov '17 1:31:41 PM by GutstheBerserker

...oh gods, how did I miss that.

I like how most of them generally consist of Confession Cam Bitching.

Wow. That's is an excellent point!

I wonder if we'll get another set of epigraphs from it in another book. If that is indeed the Stormlight Archive, it feels like there could be more secrets hidden in it.

They imply the tower itself has it's own spren which runs the Life Support fabrial, in the same way the Oathgates have some kind of Oathgate-specific spren.

Apparently it's the "Sibling" the Stormfather mentioned, the third godspren a Bondsmith can... well, bond. The archives said something about Melishi being the only Bondsmith of the generation, and wonder if that's a sign there's something wrong with the Knights as a whole. So maybe they need someone to go down to the control spire and try to bond with it. Unfortunately, I don't think they have any other potential Bondsmiths at the moment.

@Discar

It was an idle thought, but I feel it makes so much sense. Every book in the series so far has been titled after an in-universe book. It just felt so fitting that the entire series would be named after an in-universe collection of "books".

EDIT: Nevermind, some users over at the 17th shard brought up a Word of Brandon that disproves this. The Stormlight Archive is simply the name given to the collection of in-universe books that the entries in the series are named after.

Shoot. I thought I was on to something there.

edited 23rd Nov '17 7:39:39 AM by GutstheBerserker

Damn. I did think that was a good one. Oh well.

So on another topic, who wants to guess which Unmade were in the gems Gavilar had? He gave one to Eshonai and one to Szeth, so he had two. One likely contained Ba-Ado-Mishram, due to her connection to what he was talking about. But what about the rest?

• Yelig-nar: Showed up at the final battle.
• Ashtermarn: Showed up in Kholinar, and the book mentioned him ruining a court relatively recently.
• Chemoarish: Little is known about her, except that the people in Bavland swear by her.
• Dai-gonarthis: No detail at all, but Jezrien mentioned him, implying he was unsealed.
• Moelach: Been going full-force for centuries.
• Nergaoul: Apparently he's been having effects on and off for centuries, even if his time in Alethkar was recent.
• Re-Shephir: Sealed in Urithiru.
• Sja-Anat: Hasn't been seen in thousands of years, and has a very obvious effect.

So my guess is that Ba-Ado-Mishram was in Eshonai's gem, and then Chemoarish was sealed—and is still sealed—in Szeth's gem.

Thoughts?

edited 23rd Nov '17 9:16:30 AM by Discar

Might want to spoiler the second paragraph of that post.

Actually there's a Word of Brandon that the Stormlight Archive is NOT an in-universe concept or thing. The gems and the pillar both are their own thing, and I'm not betting the pillar/Uruthiru is the Sibling either.

My theory is that the Sibling played a role in turning the Singers into Parshmen and this gave the Godspren Heroic BSoD

Maybe the Sibling was not a Godspren of the Shards but the 'God'spren of the Singers. They imply often enough that there's a low level Hive Mind with the rythms and singing and maybe the Sibling was the personification for that.

As Elaboration to the above, there might have been non-Voidbringer Singers left until that event too.

edited 23rd Nov '17 2:40:23 PM by 3of4