Alice: Greetings and hallucinations, oh ye Edgedancer rereaders! Welcome back, as Lyn and I take aim at the next two chapters—did you realize we’re halfway through?—with our profound wisdom and insight! Ummmm… well, profound something, I’m sure.
Lyn: Profound appetite. Definitely appetite.
A: Anyway, there aren’t so many shenanigans to consider this week, but plenty of typical-Lift-style snark and some not-so-typical contemplation and deduction.
The Awesomeness
Chapter 11: Lift reveals that her real plan is to keep Darkness from killing his target in the city. She reasons that all she needs to do to find this proto-Radiant is look for records of strange occurrences, and discovers that there’s a repository for knowledge known as the Grand Indicium deeper in the city.
Chapter 12: She heads up onto the topside and observes some farmers for a time, trying to Listen. She takes note of the layout of the land, then determines that the best way to find the information she needs out of the thousands of books within is to be smart and devious about it…
Kadasixes and Stars
“There are Words. They’re more… ideas. Living ideas, with power. You have to let them into your soul. Let me into your soul.”
L: In a world in which emotions are personified as spren, the idea that certain ideas live and have power isn’t such a huge leap to make.
A: It’s an interesting angle, though; I’d never thought about the Ideals as actual living ideas themselves. I guess I’d always considered them as simply words which enable the spren to enhance the bond and therefore give the human more powers, but … it’s like the words are a part of the spren, so that when they are spoken and internalized by the human, they bring the spren deeper into themselves. This is a bit boggling.
L: I also have to say that the second half of this is deeply touching. Lift is starting to warm to Wyndle, for certain—she’s learning more about him and his peculiarities and has a strange (but charming) ambivalence towards him which I think betrays a true yearning for friendship. But as we’ve seen, allowing anyone in to see the real her is hard for Lift. I feel for Wyndle here, trying to break open this pig-headed kid’s shell in order to cultivate the connection that both of them so desperately need.
The confused farmers worked with their shiquas pulled up to their waists. Lift passed, and she tried to listen. To hear.
A: I’m struck, finally, by just how much focus there is on listening in this novella. I didn’t really notice it the first time through, of course, but I think there’s something in just about every chapter about listening. I commented on it once, early on, when the street urchin asked Lift if she was listening. Now I’m starting to realize just what a truckload of foreshadowing there is here, leading up to Lift saying the next set of Words.
L: Shame she’s not Listening to Wyndle as much as she is to everything else, because he’s dropping her hints with alarming regularity. (This said, we have no guarantee that she’s not just playing deaf on these things. There’s that pesky unreliable narrator thing again…)
A: Oh, SO true. That bit at the beginning, where he’s talking about the Skybreakers, and “when… you know… they get a Shardblade…” Hello, Lift?! We’re talking about Shardblades here!! Poor Wyndle.
Pet Voidbringer
“…as your tutors said in the palace. You weren’t there. I went to listen in your place.”
L: Of course you did, Wyndle. This is just so… him.
A: I’m baffled by this, though. If they were supposed to be her tutors, who were they teaching if she didn’t go? Were they able to see Wyndle, or know that he was there, so that they talked to him? Or did they have classes to which Lift was invited, and Wyndle went to class in her stead? (If that’s the case, I know some eighth-graders who want a Wyndle of their own…)
L: That’s… a good point. I didn’t even think of that. I was too busy having mental images of Wyndle perched on a classroom desk, nodding, like some kind of weird flower.
“There will be hundreds of thousands of reports and ledgers. And to state it explicitly, yes, that’s a number more than ten, so you can’t count to it.”
L: Ooooooh Wyndle bringin’ the SASS.
A: I love it when Wyndle gives as good as he gets—which seems to be more often these days! Is it just that he’s learning, or is there a certain amount of personality bleed as their bond deepens?
L: If there’s a personality bleed, it isn’t carrying over to the other orders, or Syl would be way moodier than she is.
Journey before Pancakes
L: For lack of anything else, let’s talk a bit about Rosharian agriculture.
“…paste that would grow to tiny polyps, which would eventually grow to the size of large rocks and fill to bursting with grain. Mash that grain […] and it made new paste.”
L: Jeez, Roshar’s weird.
A: It is. But it’s a fairly well-built world, you know?
L: Oh, VERY well-constructed, for certain. I love the attention to detail that Sanderson puts into all of his world-building. Doesn’t make it any less weird of a place to live, though, from our perspective.
This was supposed to be their one time of year where they didn’t have to work. Sure, they planted some treb to grow in cracks, as it could survive flooding. But they weren’t supposed to have to plant lavis, tallew, or clema: much more labor-intensive—but also more profitable—crops to cultivate.
A: Growing up on a farm, I really appreciate these little touches, because that’s pretty much the way farming works. You have some things that are easy to grow at certain times, but the really profitable crops are the ones that need particular conditions, and a lot more work.
Friends and Strangers
“Ol’ Whitehair said you can’t be crass, so long as you’re talkin’ ‘bout art. Then you’re being elegant.”
“Mistress, wasn’t this the man who got himself intentionally swallowed by a Marabethian greatshell?”
“Yup. Crazy as a box full of drunk minks, that one. I miss him.”
L: Well hey there Hoid, wasn’t expecting to see you in this little novella! Interesting that when she met him, he had white hair, instead of the black he usually sports while on Roshar. This begs the question… when did they meet? And how? It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that he’d wink at her before jumping into a greatshell’s maw…
A: It’s worth quoting from Words of Radiance here, too, because I suspect this refers to the same event:
“Tell me what you know, Wit.”
“I once spent the better part of a year inside of a large stomach, being digested.”
A: Which doesn’t even address, much less answer, the question of when they met, but we can make a couple of deductions. Hoid visited Shallan at Middlefest in Jah Keved three and a half years ago (WoR Ch. 45), when Lift would have been 9 years old. If she knew Hoid before that, it would have to have been at least a year earlier. When we first see him on Roshar, though, Hoid had been the King’s Wit for “some months” in TWoK Ch. 12; from then on in the current timeline, he shows up in both books off and on, and then meets Jasnah in the Epilogue to WoR. There hasn’t been time in there for him to spend “the better part of a year” being digested, so the swallowing bit would have to have been at least a year and a half ago. So: he knew Lift either a year or so before the Middlefest episode—so four and a half years ago, with Lift at age 8—or after leaving Jah Keved and before going to Alethkar. I’m betting on this last one, which could have been any time from 1.5 to 3.5 years ago. That would put Lift in the 9 to 12 age range, which seems more probable given that she still misses him. Also, Wyndle either remembers him, or Lift remembered him well and fondly enough to tell Wyndle about the swallowening.
L: I mean… it is possible that he was exaggerating with the “better part of a year” thing, but that doesn’t change any of your other points.
A: Oh, and since I’m waxing pedantic, I have to also point out that Marabethia is the place Sigzil was telling Kaladin about back in TWoK Chapter 40, where condemned criminals are given the choice of execution or being bait for greatshells. Do you suppose Hoid did something to get himself condemned to death, and rather than being dangled over the cliff, he just jumped in? Go out with a flourish and all that? (Though of course he knew he wasn’t “going out” per se, just leaving the current location.) It’s a very Hoid thing to do.
L: What? Hoid, do something to get himself condemned to death? NEVER.
Storming Mother of the World and Father of Storms Above
A: I got nuthin’ here. Lyn? Anyone? Bueller?
L: Yeah, I got nothin’ either.
Darkness & Co.
L: Alas, this section must remain empty for today. Apparently we temporarily exhausted our Skybreaker intel quota with last week’s reread…
Everything Else
“There’s only one thing I know how to do, and that’s steal Darkness’s lunch.”
“And, um, didn’t we do that already?”
“Not his food. His lunch.”
Ah… the person he’s planning to execute. We’re going to snatch them away from him.”
L: I have to point out again how well Sanderson is handling the unreliable narrator—she keeps us guessing as to her true intent, even though we’re in her POV. Lift is an enigma wrapped in a riddle hidden in Schrodinger’s box. Aside from that, it’s somewhat amusing that Lift thinks of Darkness’s target as his Lunch. Only she would put it into these terms…
A: I really think he outdid every previous effort at the unreliable narrator with Lift. Half the time, she doesn’t even tell herself what she’s thinking.
“Oh, calm your tentacles.”
L: I feel like this is the Lift-ian equivalent of “calm your tits” and I just adore it.
A: Nah, it’s more the Wyndle-targeted version. For anyone else, she wouldn’t bother changing it to tentacles.
L: Good point. And while we’re on the subject of irreverent pseudo-sexual metaphors…
“Kinda looks like the tip of some guy’s dangly bits. Like some fellow had such a short sword, everyone felt so sorry for him they said, ‘Hey, we’ll make a huge statue to it, and even though it’s tiny, it’ll look real big!’”
Wyndle sighed.
L: ::hand to heart:: As a denizen of the gutter, I’m glad to have a neighbor like Lift.
A: Like Wyndle, I sigh…
L: You know you love us.
A: Yes, I know. *sigh*
He smiled at her, the expression appearing in successive patterns of his growing vines along the wall as they chased her. Each image of the smile was slightly different, grown one after another beside her, like a hundred paintings. They made a smile, and yet none of them was the smile. It was, somehow, all of them together. Or perhaps the smile somehow existed in the spaces between the images in the succession.
A: I don’t even have anything significant to say about this. I just love the poetry of the image.
A: Oh, and one more, because it made me laugh so much! When Lift got that brilliant notion about figuring out where they would keep all their notes and things, she looked around the garden for a likely target, and my mind immediately jumped to “sympathetic.” Not Lift, naturally. She picks the woman with the good makeup and styled hair, sits next to her, and acts as revolting as possible, because here, they trade for everything:
“Don’t want money,” Lift said. “I’ve got a deal to make. For information.”
“I want nothing from you.”
“I can give you nothing,” Lift said, relaxing. “I’m good at that. I’ll go away, and give you nothing. You just gotta answer a question for me.”
Considering what the woman was probably afraid of getting from Lift, “nothing” and “away” is a pretty fair bargain!
L: Join us next week for the continuing adventures of Lift the Devious and Wyndle the Long-suffering, in which plans shall be revealed, food shall be eaten (maybe) and a great many scribes shall be inconvenienced…
Lyndsey wants to remind you that the Unite Them Contest is currently live on Reddit! You’ve got a little under a week to submit something awesome and possibly win some storming cool prizes—or just go and vote for your favorites. She invites you to follow her writing or cosplay work on her website or follow her on facebook or twitter.
Alice used to describe herself as a stay-at-home-mom (sahm) but has recently realized that “staying home” is merely a euphemism for “running your kids all over hell’s half-acre and only sitting still if there’s actually a competition going on.” The only relevance “home” has is that it serves as the base for all the running around, instead of peacefully sitting in an office… Also, she loves it, even if it is exhausting.
I”m beginning to agree that Lift must be older and somehow doesn’t remember it? Or has a skewed vision of Time? She’s done too much…..the ol’ white haired guy….classes in the palace….unreliable narrator indeed!
Thanks for another great re-read, ladies.
I personally attribute Wyndle’s increased sass to the gradual strengthening of the bond and associated increased/restored sentience, rather than a bleed-over from Lift specifically. That is, I think he enjoys witticisms and such at his core, and is merely becoming more like himself as he becomes more accustomed to being in the Physical Realm, rather than morphing to his Radiant’s personality (intentionally or otherwise).
I don’t have direct evidence of that, it just feels more natural to me than the alternative.
I always thought the person she was referring to who got himself swallowed was the Collector. The one we see in the Interludes. He was the one hanging upside down when Ryne went to conduct the trade in WoR. I never thought the person Lift was referring to was Hoid.
If it was Hoid, I think he would have met Lift after he met Shallan at the fair. He was surprised (his jaw momentarily dropped) when he realized that she could Investiture. Had Hoid not saw Shallan when he was talking to Lin, then Hoid would not have bothered to talk to Shallan by the carriages. In any event, had Hoid met Lift before meeting Shallan, I do not think he would have been as surprised.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
The paste seed reminded me of chia pets.
The snark factor is high this week indeed.
Tutors: I’m guessing she was invited to a class. Maybe even the same ones they must be having Gax take while he learns to be a ruler.
I… I love Wyndle. I love his Hermione-ish tendencies. I want to see Wyndle going to class. While I love Syl as well, I’ve noticed that Pattern and Wyndle are adorable in a very different way. Somehow it feels like they’re much more similar. Could that have something to do with their location on the Honor-Cultivation spectrum? Wyndle and Pattern are both from spren groups that seem to have a preference for scholarly pursuits, while the Honorspren seem much more individualistic, and also more… jock-like? OB spoilers: [Honorspren apparently like going on spren hunts, ‘similar to the way humans hunt Greatshells.’] Either way, I’m glad Wyndle is starting to show his sassy and nerdy side more. :)
Lift really grows on you, like Wyndle.
Alice, I really like your comment that perhaps the Ideals are part of the Spren, and speaking them helps to draw them into the physical realm more fully. I think this works well for the orders that actually have Ideals that we know of, such as the Windrunners, Edgedancers, Truthwatchers (maybe?) and Bondsmiths (also maybe?). But what about for Lightweavers and other orders that require something different, such as Truths? I wonder if by saying, and therefore accepting, the Ideals or Truth, they increase their Connection to the Spren, which in turn draws the Spren more into the Physical Realm.
This was Hoid? I practically always miss him when he’s not pointed out :S Once, I wondered why he was allegedly Brandon’s favourite character. I don’t anymore, not for years.
Nothing really for me to add. These were exposition chapters that set up the chapters to come. Though I, too, did not realize that was Hoid.
I would really like to see the Spren Cities and the personality types of the higher spren. We just don’t have enough examples to make accurate conjecture. So far we have:
Syl/Honorspren Windrunner
Pattern/Cryptic Lightweaver
Windle/Cultivationspren Edgedancer
So far that’s those are the only ones we have full information for. What kind of spren is the Stormfather? Glys? Ivory? And we have never even met a spren to name from the other orders. We don’t even know exactly which spren even are higher Spren. Be super interesting to finally get that information.
10. Brandon’s mentioned that Ivory (and therefore all Elsecaller spren) are “inkspren”, spren specifically attracted to highly logical and analytical people. He’s kept pretty mum on Bondsmith and Truthwatcher spren, however.
@@@@@ 8 and 9. I think people knew it was Hoid because he specifically mentioned he spend a year in the stomach of a greatshell in the WoR epilogue. This was honestly the first time I noticed him myself, rather than reading about it weeks later..
I forgot about Jazzy and Inkspren, probably because Ivory hasn’t really spoken much on screen. That leaves 4 Orders to which we have no clue.
Some fun back and forth this week ladies, it was a fun reread. Not much else to say except that I also didn’t catch that part with Hoid in the interlude (though I’m almost there in my reread so maybe I would have got it this time?). I’m much more excited for next week’s chapters.
Also, Alice I totally get it about being the chauffeur with home as a base of operations. Every school year is more and more about this. I did my reread in the car line today waiting for school to get out
@@@@@ 13 EvilMonkey. Have you read the not-quite-canon Jasnah interlude set somewhere in WoR? It might give some interesting insights about the different varieties of spren if you haven’t.
Wyndle doesn’t want to become a Shardblade, but he’s obligated to urge Lift down the path that leads to such a fate? Rough.
Would someoneplease remind me how grain gets “mashed by storm”?
@15: Hoid didn’t say it was a greatshell’s stomach. Though I guess it was, if he’s the man Lift saw getting swallowed. I nees that story. I need to know how he got digested but isn’t currently, uh, digested. And I need to know everything else.
“Lift had her always wondered why she didn’t grow polyps inside her stomach after eating, and nobody had ever given her a straight answer. ” What?? What is wrong with these people? Lift, you’re too good for this world. Ask Ol’ Whitehair, if you get a chance. You know he can answer truly. (She won’t ask, but I still really want to hear her talk with Hoid in the future.)
Actually, we were wondering last week how and when the food Lift eats turns into stormlight. So perhaps nobody would know the anwer as it pertains to her. But did she really never ask anyone who knew how the human digestive system generally works?
ok…so WHY did Hoid jump down the gullet of a great shell?
supposition-the have enormous gemhearts…lots of investiture? why? why? why?
@17: Oh yes, I need to know that too. Probably not just for fun, as he has more important things to do. Potential important discoveries about local magic would be reasonable.
@10 I would not be surprised if we didn’t get much in the Cognitive realm until the second half of the series. Unless the plan is to blow everything up in book five so there’s a whole new world in book six. Then we might see enough of the cognitive realm to get a before and after of the spren cities.
So about Hoid and the greatshell – keep in mind that this is speculation on our part. We assume Ol’ Whitehair is Hoid, but that’s not proven. It just seems reasonable that these various mentions all refer to the same thing. :)
stormlightchick @14 – The dreaded pick-up line… I can’t say how often I’ve done my reading while sitting there in the car. *sigh* So far this year it’s less pick-up line, and more “park the car and go get the key to the 15-passenger school van to haul 14 giggly girls to volleyball practice/game” – which is it’s own special experience. Heh.
Brandon has a habit of springing things at the reader they don’t expect until way later. Since Oathbringer is supposed to be the book where all the new Radients start popping up I am looking forward to at the very least a fleshing out of all the Orders. Upper level Cognitive Realm stuff? Maybe not. But who knows?
About Hoid’s reason for interacting with a Greatshell’s digestive juices: I went looking, and there are a few WoBs about Hoid and how he gets around. I’ve whited it out just in case because it’s technically related to Cosmere stuff and it might be a bit spoilery: [He apparently uses time dilation to fast forward through time.
Brandon Sanderson
Hoid, so far, has only moved forward in time. He has not ‘lived’ all of those years, but has used some time dilation techniques.
Some people on other forums have suggested he used the stomach of the Greatshell because he simply wanted an out of the way play to do this :) but I don’t think this was confirmed by any official sources.]
I want Hoid’s story and I want Ol’ Whitehair’s story, regardless of whether they’re one and the same.
Hmm….thought here: do spren of Honor create Radiants who have Ideals, and spren of Cultivation create Radiants who must speak Truths? Seems like that would make some sense.
@24 Wyndle is a cultivationspren so most probably he is from Cultivation and he’s Lift’s spren who is an Edgedancer which is an Order that has Ideals.
So far, speaking of Truths to advance as a KR is unique to Lightweavers. We really don’t have information yet on the other KRs processes.
I had forgotten about how Ideals pull the Spren deeper into you. That makes perfect sense though and I like how the Knights beliefs impact his power. Elantrins and Returned have no choice. On Scadrial they snap. Here on Roshar, the Spren choose someone they like to bond and then the knight gets to willingly change to increase the bond.
This explains why the Spren can’t just tell you the words as well. The Ideal has to become part of you, part of your Spirit web for the Spren to connect to you. It makes sense that Spren related to Honor would be formed of ideals. Once your Spirit web attunes to a new Ideal the Spren can increase the bond. The Spren is likely composed of multiple Ideals and as the Knight takes on the Ideal the bond strengthens . While Spren start out as unthinking Ideals, the overlap between Knight and Spren gives the Spren sapience and the Knight access to the Surges of the Spren.
I am also starting to think that every Spren is both Honor and Cultivation. Cultivation gives the Surges, Honor the Ideals. The other possibility I see is that five surges are from Honor and five from Cultivation so that every order gets a surge from both.
This also may explain how the old Knights broke their oaths. If their spirit web changed abruptly, the spren would be cut off without any words being spoken or deeds done. We have no idea how to change your spirit web, but it may give us an idea of what was done.
As for Lightweavers, the Ideals of Cryptics could be Self Knowledge or Integrity and speaking Truths is the way to achieve that ideal.
Last thought, multiple Spren can scout a person out, especially the Spren whose Surges/Ideals overlap like Ym with Truthwatchers and Edgedancers. They want to see what Ideals the person is close to taking on before they start the bond. Since Brandon has said people can bond multiple Spren, I suspect the limit is your character. Can you become the kind of person that multiple Spren can bond with without internal conflict? That sounds very difficult.
Thanks,
Vulcronos
In our world that Rosharan life simply exists underwater, which is why it is less familiar to us. Our equivalent of Rosharan plants like corals and sea anemones are actually animals. That might explain why they are more active than our plants.
Wyndle’s smile is like looking at several frames of a movie at once on an old film roll.
@26: Whoa, wait. Brandon said that people can bond more than one spren?! Do you think he meant that they can have more than one bond at a time, or do they just have the POTENTIAL to bond more than one? I can’t imagine it could be the former – there’s just too much potential for over-powered characters that way!
@@@@@ 26. My understanding has always been that you could bond more than one (dead) shardblade at the time, though you cannot summon them simultaneously. On the other hand, if you have the potential to become a radiant, more than one spren order might be interested in you, so you would have the potential to bond either one, like Lyndsey said. Ym would be a good example of this, though eventually he was chosen by a Truthwatcher spren, and Wyndle was send to Lift. But if you have a WoB that says people can bond more than one spren.. well that would change a lot of things that we think we know about the world. :)
I, too, would like to see a direct quote about one person bonding more than one spren. I know he said that some spren are capable of bonding with more than one person, but I’d not seen the reverse.
Based on the ambiguity of the phrase “pick-up line” this read very differently (and somewhat nonsensically) to me for a moment. :P
Nothing else. Carry on.
Maybe the bleed-through with Kaladin and Syl goes the other direction.
There is this – on spren bonds
INTERVIEW: Mar 22nd, 2014
WoR Signing Report – Argent (Verbatim)
QUESTION
Is there a limit to how many Shardblades one person can have?
BRANDON SANDERSON
Theoretically, not really. There are some things that can limit bound that.. I can imagine people have many. In the original draft of The Way of Kings Prime, Amaram had two. And so, it’s definitely possible to have multiples, and I had not thought about someone trying to bond every Shardblade.
QUESTION
So that means you can be bonded to more than one spren?
BRANDON SANDERSON
Well, those Shardblades are…
QUESTION
Dead ones.
BRANDON SANDERSON
Yes. So, can you be bonded to more than one spren? The answer to that question is also yes. Potentially. But there is a much harder limit on that.
Edit to add – now, this might be a little bit more ambiguous, as he might be talking about dead spren here.
This as well:
INTERVIEW: Jan 7th, 2015
Central Library, Seattle, WA (Paraphrased)
QUESTION
Could someone bond with two spren and wield two swords?
BRANDON SANDERSON
It is theoretically possible, but the spren aren’t going to like it. So you won’t see it very often.
@28 I figured someone could bond more than one spren at a time. I assumed that’s how KRs get their shard plates. Also, there is mention that a King or Prince could loan shardblades out to soldiers and it took a lot of trust between the two for neither to suffer. I assumed that it was unlikely a King would give up their last shardblade. So, it might be possible to bond multiple dead spren, too.
Also, I got the impression Hoid often hides from certain people. Maybe he was hiding in the great shell?
Wow, those quotes open up a whole new realm of theories.
I wonder which spren would be most likely to successfully cohabitate. Certainly not high+honor. Not cryptic+honor either. Wyndle and Pattern might get along, which suggests cultivation+cryptic could be an option.
Could someone bond with multiple spren of the same order? How would the oaths count for the different spren? Could a Lightweaver be on different levels with different spren who each need their own truths?
But the key question is, can you have access to more than 2 surges? I imagine someone could bond multiple Honorblades, so…
@29 and 30.
Sorry, I was speaking of this thread: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/55837-bonding-with-more-than-one-spren/
You can for sure bond multiple blades but bonding multiple Spren is still up in the air. I forgot that it was just confirmed that you can bond multiple Spren blades, not Spren themselves.
@@@@@ 39. Thank you for the clarification, but now some other commentators are saying it is theoretically possible to bond more than one (live) spren.. which is very interesting. So two dead spren is fine. Two honorblades, also possible, as is a combination of the two. And you can bond both a live spren and a dead spren at the same time (Renarin and possibly Dalinar). But those WoBs seem to be saying you can bond with two spren.. that opens up some new theories. I wonder how possessive spren get about their human?
But someone would have to live by both sets of oaths at the same time. I guess cryptics could work together with a lot of other orders (except windrunners), due to the personalized nature of their truths. Honorspren probably don’t mesh that well with a lot of other spren. Maybe with cultivationspren though, based on what oaths we know at the moment. Listening and protecting could go together.. wow, this is really interesting. What could drive the spren to.. share, so to speak? A lack of options?
@40 “And you can bond both a live spren and a dead spren at the same time (Renarin and Dalinar).”
That may be possible, provided that the Radiant can stand the screaming of the dead shardblade whenever he summons it.
But how about, say he is already have a live spren and then he also was able to say the Ideals of the Order of his dead spren causing it to live again. That will eliminate said screaming.
Also…
“Honorspren probably don’t mesh that well with a lot of other spren. Maybe with cultivationspren though, based on what oaths we know at the moment. Listening and protecting could go together.. wow, this is really interesting.”
I totally agree! Esp when I think about Kal. It would merge his two characteristics of being a protector and a healer. I also checked the chart posted on thw previous Edgedancer reread comnents, the one with the KR Orders and Surges and I noticed a straight line connecting the Windrunners and Edgedancers. I don’t know if I’m reading too much out of it or if it’s really relevant.
Aaaaaaaah Surgebinding Compounding?!?!
I continue to just desperately want to know how the Metallic Arts compare to the Rosharan magic systems. Surgebinding seems to be the “middle” magic system, balanced as it is between Honor and Cultivation, with…..maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe Honorblades being the “Honor” system, and…………………maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe the “Old Magic” being the “Cultivation” system?
The Metallic Arts are my favorite far and away because they’re so mathematical and logical, so I’m prepared to accept that “not all magic systems are quite so easily delineated”, but I’m not prepared to like it.
What I want to know is since Odium uses spren too, did he co-op the native magic system of Roshar to further his own ends i.e. shattering as many Shards as possible, or is the magic system the manifestation of his own Investiture and Honor/Cultivation use it as the arena that trapps him in system? Maybe the only reason Odium decided to go about this roundabout way of shattering the Shards of Roshar instead of just going for broke outright was because he agreed to a contest that had less risk for him, especially if he got to choose the magic system that everyone in the system would have to use.
On the Hoid/Lift topic, I remembered this quote from the Lift Interlude in WoR:
“Surely she’d escaped Darkness, the man in the black and silver with the pale crescent birthmark on his cheek. The man with the dead, lifeless stare. Surely he hadn’t followed her all the way from Marabethia. That was half a continent away! Well, a quarter one, at the least.”
So now we have, as far as I know, three separate tidbits of information pointing to a story I’d just love to read:
-Darkness and Lift met in Marabethia (presumably after Lift had bonded Wyndle, since Naln clearly wanted to kill her)
-Ol’ Whitehair met Lift and got intentionally swallowed by a Marabethian greatshell
-Hoid spent the better part of a year being digested
This makes me picture Hoid helping Lift escape from Darkness, and then making his grand exit via greatshell mouth. (And if the being trapped there for months was unintentional… Well, I’m sure our dear Hoid has endured worse things in the name of dramatic entrances and exits.)
@27: Yeah, it feels weird to read about “polyps” that are hard-shelled and sometimes grain-filled plants, not squishy animals with relatively low nutritional value, though I suppose they could be compared with hard coral. I know it’s framed as an English translation of a different Rosharan word, but still weird, as Wikipedia says “polyp” came from the Greek-derived French word for “octopus,” inspired by the animals’ tentacles.
Hoid was here? I totally missed it
I don’t think I caught the Hoid reference either, but now I don’t remember. It’s possible I always assumed he was the spren Collector.
@42 – me too – the metallic arts are the most interesting to me, and I like the concepts of net positive, neutral and negative magic systems. I also like the different types and combinations. But surgebinding also seems to have some of the same qualities (discrete surges that can appear in specific combinations). What is still unclear are the specifics of the other magic systems on Roshar. On Scadrial, all of the magics (Ruin’s and Preservations) focus on metals. Not sure what commonality would be here, unless it’s spren. I don’t recall if we ever get confirmation on if spren are natural to Roshar or are caused by the Shards that influenced the planet.
@47 I read some WoB a while back that said some spren flaked off of Adonalsium way back when. Suggests it’s a Roshar thing.