Timewaster's Guide Archive

Something does seem to be slightly different in these visions.  It's not really a standard "view the past" vision, as, like you said, Dalinar has been interacting with people.  Although I love the idea of time travel, and that Dalinar had influenced huge decisions in the past from the present day, it doesn't really seem to fit the theme.  But then again, there is so much we don't know in regards to how everything works in Roshar and Shadesmar, that I could very well be wrong too

The only thing that holds me back from that is the admission from the Almighty himself that these were essentially recordings.  Obviously very elegant and complicated recordings, but recordings nonetheless. That's why I wouldn't cast a vote for time travel, even though I absolutely love the thought of it!

Even if there are 3 shards unique to Roshar, considering what we know about Odium and his interaction in other worlds, we may see more than 3 shards in action.  So, at this point I assume Odium is one of the shards that Brandon was speaking about, but that doesn't necessarily have to be true.  Odium is different somehow than others we have seen so far, because it has taken an interest in at least 2 worlds.

Geek, I wasn't necessarily meaning the weapons themselves would be ineffective, but rather the time it took to get them there.  Can't really force march a catapult.  Depending on how things go in the next book, we'll probably see more siege warfare, that is if the Parshendi are even enemies in the next book.

I still don't have a good idea on why the Parshendi wouldn't use fire on the bridge crews... do they use fire in other parts of the book? The Alethi had a fear of the bridges being burned, but had they actually been burned before?  Have they ever used fire on other living creatures?  I'm not sure what the Parshendi relationship with fire is, and I can't recall much being said about it off the top of my head.

As for the jumping across the chasms thing.. there are a few things that I'm not sure about.  Parshendi can clearly jump larger distances, but how large?  Can they jump a chasm that needs a bridge to cross? Can they jump in and out as much as they want? Even if they can, jumping across into the bulk of the Alethi army would surely be a suicide mission, even if they managed to kill some of the bridge crews.  If I were a military commander, I would say shooting arrows into the bridge crews is the most effective way to stop them, rather than needlessly risking 6 to 10 of my men per bridge on a jump across.

Well, I wonder what Hoid represents then?  If Hoid is some physical representation of a cognitive ideal that resides in Shadesmar, him leaving could have some serious implications on Roshar.  Maybe if he is "killed" it simply means that a particular ideal no longer exists in the minds of men on that planet?

Just to throw out a random example, if the ideal of honor no longer exists in Roshar, and Hoid represented that ideal, he wouldn't be able to appear back in Roshar until honor returned among the people. Similar to Syl in a way I would think, but I don't think Hoid would classify as a Spren. It might be completely insane to even go down that path, and I could be looking way too into the matter, but it's an interesting thought I think.

That would be why he said he would return even if he was killed... it's kind of a strangely philosophical idea of being "killed" but how else could an ideal be killed?  This entire theory rests on the fact that Hoid is a physical representation of some kind of ideal from the Cognitive Realm though, so if he's human, then this whole post is hogwash

It seems like if Kaladin made 10 clearmarks in 2 weeks, and an emerald chip is "more than he normally made in 2 weeks" then an emerald chip would have to be worth more than 8 clearmarks. Or are you assuming he's referencing his net income after the bribe?