Timewaster's Guide Archive

While the list began with Moraine it did not end there.  Seeing Moraine alive would not have an affect on all the other women who have died because of him: they would still be dead.  And while I haven't read all the books in a while I believe the list started well before Moraine died.

Purely speculative theory, but one possible explanation for what happened to a lot of the Shardblades and the difference between Alethi blades and Szeth's is that the Alethi blades were reforged to create the extremely large Shardblades that are seen nowadays. We know that they can't create new Shardblades but Shardplate rebuilds itself when infused with enough Stormlight so who's to stay that in the days after the Radiants they didn't have a means of "growing" larger Shardblades by combining them together and infusing with Stormlight?

The larger blades that the Alethi have seem more adept at mowing down large numbers of foot soldiers, Dalinar describes fighting with a Shardblade as being very different than using a normal sword; more large arcing swings than precise.  This sounds like an adaptation made over the years from the Shardblades being used to fight in Desolations to being used to fight battles against human armies.  And because only other Shardblades are really a threat against someone in Shardplate this fighting style doesn't seem to lend itself to self protection. 

From Dalinar's vision, Shardblades don't always just pass right through creatures, when fighting the Midnight Essences:

Moving fluidly, Plate clinking, the man struck at the beasts. He effortlessly sheared a monster in half, flinging pieces into the night that trailed black smoke.

While it may just be he killed it then the blade continued on to cut the thing in half it sounds more like the Shardblade had a physical effect on the creature that they don't have on people or normal animals.  When fighting something like that you are going to need to fight with the Shardblade differently than in their large scale battles.

Since Szeth's blade comes from the Shin who are more pacifist they would of had no need for the "adaptation" so his blade is still the normal length.

This is a great discussion.  As far as using fire arrows on the bridges there are a few other things to consider:

Highstorms - These bridges are left out in highstorms.  It is never mentioned if they are treated and if they are what they are treated with, but getting an extremely heavy rain every couple of days is going to make them much more difficult to set on fire.

Time - They get 2-3 volleys of arrows off now.  With fire arrows they would probably only get off 1 (less range+time to light).  You would also either need 2 people per archer, one to light one to shoot, or one man running down the line lighting arrows.

ROI - Return on Investment.  Getting 4-6 (sometimes more) bridge crews down is more guaranteed with their current strategy.  It would take a lot more time for the wood to actually catch on fire to the point that the bridge is unusable, especially with cavalry and soldiers running over it and helping stamp out the flames. And as far as pitch goes, there is an abundance of dirt/rock/sand to thrown down on pitch.

It is entirely possible the Parshendi tried something like flaming arrows, but I imagine they learned they got better results by just firing on the bridge crews.

Other things:
The arrows don't stop as soon as the bridge reaches the chasm.  Dunny was hit by a Parshendi arrow after laying the bridge, and immediately after by a Alethi arrow.  By the time the bridges reach the chasm the Parshendi are being hit by return fire so they are more disorganized and are moving back.

You couldn't just surround a plateau that the Parshendi were on unless you had a ridiculous amount of troops.  Since the Parshendi can just jump across chasms they can very quickly move to the weakest point and jump across and break through.  With the Alethi fighting independently they wouldn't have the numbers and they don't have that level of mobility.

Siege equipment is an interesting idea, I think this just comes down to time.  Suprised Dalinar doesn't use them, as his bridges are considered more like siege towers being pulled by chulls but I imagine you would have to make the bridges much heavier.  Dalinar and one of his officers discussed using a combination or man carried bridges and the "siege bridges" but it was determined that the bridge would end up being too unwieldy for men to carry. Overall I think this has more to do with speed, there isn't time for a proper siege.  Laying siege to a tower would also give the parshendi more time to work on getting the gemheart and just running away with it.

There's a lot of theorizing here, but we seem to be trending towards a particular view.  This is my take on that view:

(1) Shademar is the cognitive realm.  That is, it is the realm of thought.  Everything that thinks would then be represented in the cognitive realm by something.

(3) Shadesmar is connected to the real world, somehow.  What affects one affects the other, and vice versa.

I think cognitive isn't quite right, I think they are both "physical" in a sense.  The map of Shadesmar is an inverse map of Roshar - the ground in one is water in the other, though I believe the "Seas" in Shadesmar are made up of the beads.  Or put another way, for every solid object in Roshar there is a corresponding bead or group of beads.  The beads would then control the representation of all things, Soulcasting essentially being asking a certain bead to change its representation on the other side.

I don't think beads are necessarily represented by Spren, I think the beads are at a much more base level than them.  It is even possible that the Spren have a corresponding "bead" or they could be totally outside of it.  It could even be that characteristics that the beads infuse on objects are what attract the spren to them (which would mean that beads forming Kaladin are affected by his honor)

And no I have no idea what this says about the oceans in Roshar