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Read the four main SA books and the Mistborn era 1 & 2 books in late December and January; I'd been trying to read through the thread before posting, but I just had a thought today I'm going to have to share. Spoilers for all of SA: I was thinking about the "humans as colonizers/invaders" theme of the series, and something big occurred to me. Maybe this is commonly known, but Coppermind has nothing about the idea. Let me walk through my thought process. 1. We know from the hunts in WoK that the Chasmfiends are a good source of gemhearts for use. Animals on Roshar are also raised and harvested for their gemhearts. 2. We know that the listeners have gemhearts. 3. We know from Kaladin's Bridge Four trick that the Parshendi reacted very angrily at the thought of humans touching or messing with their dead. The logical conclusion is that, during at least some of the conflicts between humans and Parshendi, the humans were harvesting the bodies of dead Parshendi to take and use their gemhearts. The colonizers literally ripped out the hearts of the natives and used them as currency. We know fabrials are hard on gems, and we know that gems eventually break apart (as their pieces are lower-denomination currency), but we don't know the time-scale. It's entirely possible that some of the gems still being used as currency or lights are the hearts of the listeners. The practice has presumably been forgotten, as it wasn't happening on the Shattered Plains.
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Feb 20, 2024 17:39
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pik_d posted:Words of Brandon spoilers for general Stormlight background stuff There are several peoples across Roshar who have listener blood in them, the Horneaters and Herdazians at least. So there was some interbreeding, whether or not it was consensual I have no clue. SA speculation spoilers: That could have been "ordinary" interbreeding, but when you have people who can redesign other people's bodies there's other ways that the two peoples might have intermingled over however long this cyclical conflict has been going on. I am also very suspicious that at least one of the Unmade might be able to create a cross-bred human/listener, and possibly more than one. Ba-Ado-Mishram appears to have expressed Connection, and her imprisonment seems to have disrupted Connection across the entire planet, so perhaps she was involved. I missed my chance to make first-read posts, but before I forget some of my initial thoughts and reactions I want to make a few summary posts here. This first one covers Mistborn era 1, so spoilers for that: Overall, I really enjoyed these books, and thought many of the twists/mysteries were fairly done. I did get upset about the Book 2 twist that Ruin can change text written on any non-metal: there's almost no indication that this is possible until the twist becomes known, and there's no way to intuit that a being called "Ruin" would be able to change words instead of simply making them unreadable. Other twists (like the 16% misting twist in Book 3) were much harder to pick up on if you didn't have broader Cosmere knowledge, because knowing "16" is important is tougher without that. Otherwise, I felt like Sanderson played things pretty fair in Mistborn 1. In a few places, I had amusingly wrong theories. I did figure out who the Lord Ruler was ahead of the reveal, though not by much, and thus guessed what Kelsier's metal would do and why it would help. My best wrong theory concerned the Lord Ruler's missing atium supplies, which I worked out early in Book 2 when they were first mentioned and clung to through most of Book 3: I reasoned as follows. The mist was clearly representative of or associated with the threat that the Hero was supposed to overcome. Mistwraiths, and (I presumed) the kandra, are associated with the mist. The kandra work in exchange for atium. And the Lord Ruler states outright that the threat will end everything now that he's died. So my logical conclusion was that the Lord Ruler, instead of overcoming the unknown threat, had bribed it with atium, and was paying it off with that supposedly huge atium reserve. That meant not only that our heroes would never find the reserve, but that Kelsier had screwed them over by destroying all the forming crystals of atium, making it impossible to bribe the problem to go away again. I am proud that once the atium reserve was revealed, burning it all off was the solution I predicted. I had no idea about the hemalurgy spikes until the end of Book 2, though I did figure out the earring and Ruin's other tricks deploying spikes in Book 3. (I didn't connect the earring to blocking Preservation's powers from Vin, though.) That one did depend on making assumptions about hemalurgy, which we still didn't understand very well even at the end of Book 3. I did catch on that Ruin controlled the koloss early in Book 3. I did also predict Spook's storyline in Book 3 almost beat for beat after he got spiked. OTOH, I missed the importance of Marsh intercepting the messenger, though. Reading about anime influence ITT has helped me come to terms with "Vin is in her early 20s." I would have accepted late 20s with a really limited set of experiences.
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Feb 23, 2024 02:49
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Two more pieces of SA speculation that bubbled up out of my head while reading the December 23 part of the thread. SA spoilers only: We know Kaladin’s parents. We know little about Hesina’s family save that they were high-ranking. What if she’s related to Taravangian? That would make Kaladin related to Taravangian, and might restrict Odium’s ability to mess with him in the future. Now the big one. We know something of the Recreance and that Honor was killed subsequent to it. What if the thing Honor did that made him vulnerable is the thing that caused the Recreance. Here’s what I think happened: Odium was temporarily out of the picture, and Ba-Ado-Mishram approached Melishi with a peace offering, willing to betray Odium to protect the singers. Unfortunately, Melishi already had a plan to imprison Ba-Ado-Mishram. I think both he and Honor agreed that “peace” with the singers alive meant their permanent neutralization via slaveform, and that together they misled Ba-Ad-Mishram to imprison her while justifying their actions as holding up their end of the bargain. When word got out, all the Radiants (except those in the “letter of the law” order) forcibly resigned. Melishi may have repented, or may have been killed (the Sibling would, as we know, have been unharmed by that). That event would have become known to the Fused (who likely lived through multiple peace attempts) and would explain why most seem so set against the hope of peace, and it would have an ironic echo in the attempts of the listeners to make peace in the more recent past.
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Feb 25, 2024 17:20
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CapnAndy posted:This next stuff is full spoilers through the WaT prologue. I think "I'm terrified" means more than you're giving it credit for. I think she's identifying the terror that locked away much of her memories and splintered her personality. Even at the end of RoW she clearly hasn't recovered fully. Reader's report for Warbreaker, I'm just starting chapter 32. Spoilers for general cosmere concepts: Took a while to get into this one despite being spoiled on several characters I've already seen in other books (but just their names). My largely unorganized thoughts: The Siri relationship as it's developing with the God-King feels to me like it might be one of the options the priests use to do whatever they do. "She teaches him to read, they bond, they reproduce like we wanted" seems on-point for a group of people this manipulative. Brandon caught me off-guard with the tongue thing though I did perceive Susebron was clearly not what Siri had been told; he did plant enough clues, adroitly so. I did immediately pick up on the problem with "inherited Breaths" once that reveal happened and it was nice to see the characters register the problem not long after. The Returned are fascinating, and Lightsong's experimentation suggests to me that they might be the opposite of Cognitive Shadows. In other words, the Returned have everything registered in "the body" and parts not associated with what Cognitive Shadows inherit, which implies overlap or redundancy between things like personality traits and language. Given that Sanderson has language as a thing you can acquire magically, I presume Connection leaves its mark on both mind and body (and soul) and thus language registers with each. This may get proved wrong before the end of the book. I am spoiled about which Shard has influence over this world; that makes me wonder whether the Lifeless are too much different from the Returned, with the difference being that the Lifeless receive human Breath and the Returned "divine" Breath. Lightsong's personality felt fairly Hoid-like for much of the book, and while the "detective" line feels like it's ruling out that possibility, I am still dubious he was a cop. That flash he had of prison doesn't mean he wasn't being locked up. I did briefly wonder if he would turn out to be Arsteel Returned, but that would require a death in a very specific time-frame and that doesn't seem likely. Still uncertain whether Clod is Arsteel's body. Probably not. Denth and Tonk Fah feel a little too close to Wax and Wayne for comfort. I know they aren't the same characters, but if you're going to have a cosmere keeping your characterizations distinctive gets more important. (I realize this book preceded Mistborn Era 2.) The degree to which Denth isn't a local remains to be seen. Chekov's giant stone statues have been thoroughly established, haven't they? The big surprise is going to be if they don't end up animating/awaking at some stage. Sanderson's absolutely up to something with names again: lots of names where the first three letters are symmetrical. No idea what that means beyond a convention. I just finished rereading Bujold's Sharing Knife series before starting this book, and so was primed for the "giving away Breath on your deathbed" scene. But it seems strange that the book's established repeatedly that people can sell their Breath, and that sometimes people may be tortured or coerced to give over their Breath, but that the idea families would bequeath Breath doesn't seem to have been formulated. I'd expect the oldest established families to have lots of Breath coming from their generations before, set against the "new money" people who purchased their Breath instead of inheriting it. Additional Mistborn spoiler below (full Era 1) Edgli's Tears are the flower that provides multicolor dye? Besides the obvious linkage with the hair of the Royal family, that really feels like it's another way to store up Investiture. These flowers are the local Shard's equivalent to Atium, perhaps? That's also interesting considering the Art criticism as prophecy element in the story.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:59
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Warbreaker up to Chapter 34 spoilers, as well as The Lost Metal: And Hoid just showed up. Typical. I now suspect that the burning of the God-King's sheets every morning has something to do with how they transfer his breath into his heir. Though it's hard to believe that Sanderson of all writers is going to have some sort of sperm-based Breath transfer system. Still, the "destroy all this stuff" aspect of life in the palace strikes me as an attempt to conceal the destruction of something vitally important to getting ahold of all that power. My other observation is from earlier but now modified a bit: Lightsong's colors are red and gold. That's the same colors as Autonomy's army in Lost Metal... or at least, the army she was using. And the Usurper supposedly had empowered Lifeless referred to as Phantoms who may still be around? That makes me wonder one thing about Lightsong--perhaps it's wrong to assume that all Returned return immediately after death?--and another about that army of red and gold. Or maybe Brandon just likes using red and gold to depict power/martial might/evil/corruption, which would say something else about Lightsong. Oh, and Hoid mentioned something about the person who taught him how to perform. I find myself wondering if that person isn't the driving motivation behind everything he's doing now. I even find myself wondering whether, if we treat Adonalsium as the Cosmere God, we should be thinking of Hoid as Satan? But is he a repentant Satan?
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Mar 13, 2024 20:40
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I finished Warbreaker. Warbreaker spoilers follow.DarkHorse posted:This brought up an idea (Narsham do not read) I suspect so, as the priests would have known about "mental commands" and couldn't be 100% certain that Siri didn't have some secret knowledge to share. But more likely, they're just worried in general that the God-King might try something and get lucky. (The "mental commands" thing was a not-deducible development, but fair dues for both how Vasher won his duels and for the identity of the lead plotter/sort-of-villain.) I did wonder as well whether this level of Heightening implies some degree of leakage into objects exposed to the aura for an extended period of time. I'm thinking more of leaking Biochroma than Breaths: I am very curious whether white clothing made to shimmer in colors while in the God-King's aura can have those colors drained. Is it a mirage, or does it count? For the eventual sequel, it occurs to me that Viv doesn't know about the heritage of her family. She may be falling for a distant ancestor. The real question is how Vasher feels about that. I am reading through the annotations now and I am inordinately proud of intuiting that Clod is Arsteel's corpse. Nightblood implies that sentient objects/people who are Awakened need a constant supply of Breaths to keep going, but it isn't clear whether it eats everyone's Breaths or tears them apart and sends them back to the Spiritual Realm in tatters. I suppose it might be both. I do wonder whether Awakening steel has implications beyond the world of this story (and I'm thinking Mistborn-type implications). Edit: I had one other thought about SA based on something about Warbreaker: Vasher appearing in the prologue and turning out to be the title character knocked something loose in my brain and made me consider Szeth again. His father sounds like he might have been either a leader or high priest or a king, and I expect that will be revealed in Book 5. Narsham fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Mar 16, 2024 |
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Mar 16, 2024 00:45
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NikkolasKing posted:I hate this quote so, so much. Everything about it. I think people forget the prologue of the first book. Kelsier drops by the skaa, asks a few questions, determines they have a bit of spirit and that someone's been taken, and proceeds to kill every single person in the nearby keep except the young woman he's rescuing. Every single one, including women and children. And then he just walks away without caring what will happen to the skaa afterward. You can be complex while ALSO being a psychopath. And you can be a psychopath while still being justified in what you're doing.
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Mar 31, 2024 01:12
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Mordiceius posted:OATHBRINGER PART 3 No additional spoilers reply: And that's why all that time spent world-building and character building pays off. Almost every magical session I've had in the RPG campaigns I've run over the decades has involved a group of well-established characters in a well-established world and a challenging situation, having a conversation, whether about what to do or what it all means or how they should even approach the situation theoretically. The stakes in a combat scene are easy to detect and understand, and don't necessarily take a lot of time or development (although they can benefit from that). But a meaningful conversation can be dramatic and revealing and significant and change the course of a story, all without a single sword being swung. Sanderson is better at the dramatic and revealing action scenes than the conversations, I think, but he's really good at both and he's improving, too.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:14
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