Timewaster's Guide Archive

The ardents Geranid and Ashir, for making a systematic study of spren while the rest of the world overlooks them as a mere curiosity.

I agree. Especially when they use of maths and statistics to create theories. I love it! 

(General spoilers for all sorts of things below.)

My thought was that as a person's soul is leaving their body for the afterlife, another mind starts leaking in -- specifically, the consciousness of Talenel, the Herald who is still bound by the Oathpact.  This is a precursor to his physical return, and explains why the visions have only started happening recently.

The lives of the Heralds (after joining the Oathpact) seem to have two parts: 1) terrible, furious fighting during the Desolations in which they accept their violent death is more or less inevitable and 2) something far worse that fills the intervening time in "the place of nightmares" (i.e. Shadesmar).  Presumably, at the moment of death each Herald's consciousness transfers to Shadesmar to live out some horrible torture until their return.  Possibly, this entails reliving the horrors of each Desolation they've lived through, with nothing to look forward to until the next Desolation.


Why Talenel, and not just random prophesey?  The visions seems to have personal knowledge of the Heralds, the Oathpact, and the Almighty.

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“Ten people, with Shardblades alight, standing before a wall of black and white and red.”
“Ten orders. We were loved, once. Why have you forsaken us, Almighty! Shard of my soul, where have you gone?”

One specifically references the abandonment of the Oathpact:

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“The burdens of nine become mine. Why must I carry the madness of them all? Oh, Almighty, release me.”

This one was particularly intreaguing:

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“Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns.”

Sixteen is not as significant number on Roshar as it is elsewhere the cosmere, yet it pops up here.  Possibly a reference to the 16 Shardholders, implying that Roshar was once managed by three Shardholders (Cultivation, The Almighty, and Odium), but now only one (Odium) is still in power.

Many of the other quotes are consistent with Jasnah's theory on the Voidbringers and seem to describe fighting between the Heralds and the Voidbringers, including the battle at the Shattered Plains

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“That chanting, that singing, those rasping voices.”

Number 5 is interesting because the dying host is still lucid, and is quite clearly one of Tavarangian's "patients" who has realized that something is not right. 

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“I’m dying, aren’t I? Healer, why do you take my blood? Who is that beside you, with his head of lines? I can see a distant sun, dark and cold, shining in a black sky.”

Note that the patient offers up a profoundly true statement "I'm dying, aren't I?".  He then sees Shallan's symbol-heads and has a glimpse of Shadesmar's sky. 
This parallels Shallan's own experience:

Quote

"'What am I?' she whispered. 'I'm terrified.'
This is true.
...
She found herself in a place with a black sky and a strange, small white sun that hung on the horizon, too far away."

Also interesting is the fact that Taravangian's scholars consider this sample to be "of particular note."  It seems Jasnah is not the only unconventional Soulcaster familiar with Shadesmar.

I like this theory. Maybe part of the process of the Heralds returning involves stealing people's bodies. Maybe they come back each time in a different body. So everytime someone dies, the soul flees and a heralds soul takes it over. But usually the body is too damaged to be of use, so the Herald only has time to give some sort of warning (which most people don't understand as its been too long since the last desolation) before they flee again. Then finally the Herald finds a body which is suitable and come back properly. (i know that this theory has a lot of holes in it, but its just a thought).

Maybe that quote 5 was the first time Taravangian realised that soulcasting could be done without a soulcaster. He then asked Jasnah over to test the theory, and it was confirmed. (an even wilder theory)

Cheese Ninja, I believe that the year on Roshar is longer than 365 days. The first epigraph in the book is dated "the first day of the week Palah of the month Shash." These dates are later abbreviated, such as "second day of Kakash," which would be the week of Kak in the month of Shash. The names of the dates follow the numbers on the Ars Arcanum in the back of the book. That means there would be ten weeks for each of the ten months. The highest dated day is the 5th day of a week, which means that there are at least 500 days in a year.

If anyone is really good at maths and seeing patterns and that sort of stuff (and if you have time) maybe you can attempt to work out how long each month is, how many months there are etc. Maybe someone can ask Brandon at a signing or email?

Quote from: Stormblessed on September 19, 2010, 12:39:40 PM

Quote from: Cheese Ninja on September 18, 2010, 04:54:48 PM

Now here's my question, is Tavarangian allied with the ghostbloods?  Or a separate organization all on his own?

I was under the impression that Tavarangian was the leader of the Ghostbloods, but I may have misunderstood the section.

If he is part of the ghostbloods, then him and Kabsal would have to be from different factions with different goals.  There wouldn't be any reason for an assassin with poisoned bread when your cooking staff makes all of Jasnah's meals.  Kabsal hides himself when he and Shallan are in the garden and they see Taravangian and Brother Ixil.  The question is, did Kabsal fear being recognized, or just the questions that would come from him not being recognized?

If there's one thing we know about Taravangian is that he is sly, and trying very hard to hide who he really is. We have already established the fact that Taravangian didn't need a soulcaster, and he most likely brought Jasnah there to see if she could soulcast without a soulcaster. Establishing that she can, he wanted to get rid of her, so he sent Kabsal, someone who seemed completely untied to him in any way, to kill her. Even doing it in his own home will divert suspicion from him because no one would believe him to be that arrogant to think he could kill someone in his own home and get away with it. Who else is better. I think Kasbal hid from Taravangian and Brother Ixil, one to seem unrelated to Taravangian and two because he is not a true brother of the order Brother Ixil might wonder who he was.

When Gavilar died:

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The king coughed. “You can tell…Thaidakar…that he’s too late….”
“I don’t know who that is,” Szeth said, standing, his words slurring from his broken jaw. He held his hand to the side, resummoning his Shardblade.
The king frowned. “Then who…? Restares? Sadeas? I never thought…”

Amaram after Kaladin kills the shardbearer:

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“…why Thaidakar would risk this?” Amaram was saying, speaking in a soft voice. “But who else would it be? The Ghostbloods grow more bold. We’ll need to find out who he was. Do we know anything about him?”
“He was Veden, Brightlord,” the stormwarden said. “Nobody I recognize. But I will investigate.”
...skipping stuff...
Amaram shook his head. “You’d have changed your mind. In a day or two, you’d have wanted the wealth and prestige—others would convince you of it. You’d have demanded that I return them to you. It took hours to decide, but Restares is right—this is what must be done. For the good of Alethkar.”

On the other hand, how many organizations have access to Soulcasters?

Btw who is Thaidakar? At first I thought he was some random name who would become apparent in a latter book, but it seems I have missed his name a couple of times (i'm not very good with names and i haven't got around to my second reading yet). Do we know who he is, or are we only making wild guesses?

I want Kaladin's father to turn up at the Shattered Planes as a surgeon, and for Kaladin to reunite with him, maybe learning more about being a surgeon under him for old times sake.

The problem with trying to work out the gift and curse is that we are making the assumptions of what Dalinar would choose from the character we are shown in WoK. However I think that he went to Nightwatcher before the assassination of the King, and we know from numerous references that Dalinar was a completely different person before the assassination, before he started honouring the codes and before he started hearing passages from the way of kings. This makes it almost impossible to try and work out what sort of gift the old Dalinar would ask for.

However, from my reading of the book, I have a fairly strong suspicion that losing the memories of his wife wasn't the curse (or at least was not at the time, he may look back on it now and regret his decision). This leads me to the theory of whether the gift and curse can be the same thing. A loss of painful memories may be a gift at the time, but it could very soon become a curse.

Quote from: Stormblessed on September 18, 2010, 12:24:16 AM

Quote from: Cheese Ninja on September 17, 2010, 10:59:23 PM

I was thinking about those gemstones too, but if Elhokar was draining them with Radiant-type abilities, I would think we would have seen some effect on him or his surroundings, but nothing jumped out at me.

Maybe it wasn't Elhokar that drained them, but Dalinar. That might be where he got his extra strength.

That's really interesting.  Though, here's my question: Could honorspren be bonding with him without his knowledge?  For some reason, I thought they all would have a Syl/Kaladin relationship, but maybe that's the one that's not normal.  What do you think?

The bonding with Dalinar was probably brief, and not well connected. Many of the people on Roshar just ignore the spren, so maybe one has been hanging around Dalinar and he hasn't noticed as they all look the same and he is use to ignoring them.

I was thinking about those gemstones too, but if Elhokar was draining them with Radiant-type abilities, I would think we would have seen some effect on him or his surroundings, but nothing jumped out at me.

Maybe it wasn't Elhokar that drained them, but Dalinar. That might be where he got his extra strength.