Timewaster's Guide Archive

I was led to believe that each Blade is a work of art and is individual in its design. Dalinar and Adolin - and Elhokar too - are all Alethi royals, which by definition makes them warriors as well. And warriors want big Shardblades, because when balance and weight are not issues, length/range become the most important characteristic of the weapon. Szeth, on the other hand, is an assassin - a massive Blade is less efficient than his small one.

Which makes me wonder whether the nature of the user can change his or her Blade to an extent. I don't think the Blade changes as soon as you pick it up, but maybe over time...

I always assumed there was some relationship between Odium and the Shardblades & Shardplates (possibly). I don't like the way people die if they are killed by a Shardblade - the burning in their eyes makes me think about Voidbringers, and Voidbringers make me think of Odium. I am not sure how this fits into that vision of Dalinar where he saw the Knights Radiant abandon their weapons and armor.

If he'd had a hemalurgic spike, Ruin would have bad certain level of control over him. I think Ati was able to whisper words in his mind, but nothing like Zane's false interpretation of God.

Moreover, Lord Ruler's powers were described as clever use of allomancy and feruchemy - no mentions about hemalurgy whatsoever. There is also lordofsoup's argument that he was strong enough - arguably the strongest allomancer (up until Vin?), so he would have no need for a spike. So I'd wager no, he didn't have one.

And after a little research I found some old chapters of Liar of Partinel, which was that second book I couldn't remember the name of. I must admit, the first chapter is quite shocking, considering that I didn't know... some extra tidbits.

I don't know, this is a theory with virtually no backup behind it. Brandon likes to foreshadow things, so that when you actually learn the reason for something, you can go back and say "Woah, all those things were leading up to this, it was so obvious!"... except it wasn't, because you were missing the central piece to the puzzle.

We don't know anything about the Parshmen and the Parshendi. There has been no interaction between Alethkar and the Parshendi before Gavilar found them, and when he did, they were just as developed as they are in the book. I think that would rule out your theory, unless you go into some secret kidnapping action, or hidden interaction with other kingdoms... but that would be you trying to save face, I think.

If there is any hint about what and who the Parsh-people are, it would be in Jasnah's chapters and the epigraphs of Part Three - her research and theory that the Parsh are the Voidbringers. I have my own thoughts on her supposition, but I'll have to post them in a different topic, as they are kind of an off-topic here.

What I loved about the AonDor was how close it was to science. You write Aon formulae, and you get result. Shameless plug.

There are all those, but none of them - at least as far as I have seen - have an article that explains what I want to explain here. The purpose of this thread, or its final version rather, will be to introduce a reader who has read everything Brandon has written to all of the details that are not explicitly stated in his books. Adonalsium is mentioned only once (in WoK) or twice, and it's nothing more than just a name.

Normally I wouldn't bother with anything like that, but Brandon is a relatively new author and his community is still young. We don't have the resources Robert Jordan, John Tolkien, or George R.R. Martin have - we have to build them. And on top of that, Brandon is one of the very few authors that have recurring themes and cosmological motifs repeating across books set in different worlds. In fact, the only other writer that does that, at least in my library, is David Gemmell and his Source-based religion.

I guess what I am trying to say is that Brandon is, in a way, writing one huge series - the Cosmere series, so to speak. And the beginning of the process of understanding the Cosmere is an actual summary of everything we know about it.

P.S. This being said, I should probably become member of those Wikis...

I don't think Soulcasting is as powerful as you make it look. Least of all, there is a hard limit on how much you can Soulcast - determined either by the gems in your fabrial, or by the amount of Stormlight you have access to. Without spoiling the book, when Jasnah used Soulcasting for her philosophy lesson, she had to use a pretty big gem in order to handle four people. I doubt she could have kept doing what she was doing for too long.

In addition to that, Soulcasters are limited by the Ten Essences. They can't be skilled in all of them, or so I guess - prodigies excluded. It's more versatile than the other magic systems, which all have some strong limitations, but I find it far from overpowering.