Questioner: On Roshar, it’s kind of tradition men eat spicy foods, women more sweeter. Could it be possible that a sort of euphemism for gay men or gay women is, “Does he eat sweet food? Does she eat spicy food?”
Brandon Sanderson: I could see people saying that, yes.
Suppose a Reod Elantrian bonds a Shardblade. The Blade needs 10 heartbeats to be summoned. The Elantrian’s heart does not beat. If CPR/chest compressions is performed, can the Reod Elantrian summon the Shardblade?
Yoitsthew: Are there any deserts on Roshar, and if so could the white sand organism spread? Just imagining how sand mastery might possibly migrate to Roshar lol.
Brandon Sanderson: The White Sand organism could spread on Scadrial, and on any planet, but it would need investiture to do so. It would be easier for it to spread on Roshar, for example, because of the storms.
Returning to the world of Roshar, in anticipation for the release of The Rhythm of War, the fourth book of The Stormlight Archive. Navani & Jasnah Kholin.
Cosmere fan art of a scene from Words of Radiance. I’ve been trying to sketch this Chasmfiend the right way, but it’s been pretty tough. One of the hardest creatures I’ve sketched. Anyway, I wanted to share this art especially during KaiJune since the creature has some aspects of a Kaiju. Although it’s not necessarily classified as one in the Cosmere. it definitely takes on the characteristics of a Kaiju.
Probably The best Stormlight Archives review I’ve seen because it’s complaining about everything that I liked about the series but it’s also hilariously true:
“This book is mind-bogglingly bad. I’m always looking for fantasy books and I knew this was very popular so, after a few years I’ve decided to try it. I can stomach the childish depiction of characters but I cannot bring myself to accept the utter idiocy of the setting. The opening is painfully bad: an all powerful assassin kills a king and his guard by having superpowers taken straight out of videogames. Then we are introduced with the hero, who, of course, rejects the greatest conceivable honour in the world out of pure spite. He is then spared his life out of sheer plot armour, and the reader is left wondering why he hasn’t been killed for constant rebellion. His mates are all killed, but he survives because, oh, he’s sooo special. Slaves are paid a living wage so that there is a way for the hero to earn money because it’s needed by the story. When the hero screws up, his senior officers are killed immediately but he’s instead given a chance to survive, and, not very surprisingly, he does. Then there is a war in the Shattered Plains: for six years the warriors, instead of fighting, go looking for overgrown shrimps to steal the enormous emeralds that grow inside of them. I kid you not, this is the primary purpose of the war: not beating the enemy but killing the shrimps while they’re pupating (to turn into what, an enormous blowfly?) before the enemy slays it. The entire strategy works like this: the entire army is sitting idly, wearing fashionable scarves and drinking wine. A horn sounds in the distance announcing that a shrimp has been found. The warriors scramble to arrive first, before the enemy but, more importantly, before the other commanders. The moronicity of the portable bridges defies belief. The idiocy never seem to finish: soldiers with organic armour, illiterate kings with learned wives, even the regular storms that make magic. The hero, of course, discover magic that has been hidden in plain sight for countless years. In a specific kingdom, people live with feet constantly in two inches of water. In another, people eat horns and shells. For some reason, on a different planet, people know of Japanese katas. I could go on for hours: avoid this book.”
Every word of this makes me WANT to read this book (if I hadn’t already). Look, Stormlight Archive is self-indulgent but fuck y’all: I deserve self-indulgent in this era.
look all i’m saying is that kaladin must have had always had perfect skin or else the whole stormlight healing thing would have been really obvious pretty immediately
RereadingThe Way of Kings - Chapter 33 (Cymatics) when Shallan is in the Palanaeum library in Kharbranth:
A light flickering through nearby bookcases startled her, and she tucked away her folio. It turned out to be just an old, berobed female ardent, shuffling with a lantern and followed by a parshman servant. She didn’t look in Shallan’s direction as she turned between two rows of shelves, her lantern’s light shining out through the spaces between the books. Lit that way - with her figure hidden but the light streaming between the shelves - it looked as if one of the Heralds themselves were walking through the stacks.
Which made me go “hey, what if - ”
So I checked Coppermind, and it turns out that, yes, Brandon has confirmed that this is Pailiah, the Herald associated with Truthwatchers! (Battar, the Herald associated with Elsecallers, is also in Kharbranth and was part of Taravangian’s Diagram group - she’s briefly mentioned in ROW Interlude 3.)
Given that the Truthwatchers are all about seeking out and revealing true and accurate information, and all the Heralds who broke the Oathpact have become their antitheses, and she’s in the greatest library and archive in the world, it’s almost certain that she is either destroying books or falsifying them.
That makes Chanah (Dustbringers) and Vedel (Edgedancers) the only Heralds still unaccounted for, which lends additional credence to a certain Book 5 theory.
I’ve started rereading The Way of Kings and am noticing a few things.
First, the risk that Sanderson took starting it the way he did. Three different time periods and viewpoint characters before the fourth chapter finally gives us a current-time, main character viewpoint. If I was Sanderson’s editor when he was pitching this, I’d be finding the Cenn viewpoint the hardest sell.
The Kelek one is short, hints at vastly powerful forces, ends with the creation of a great mythic lie, and the “4,500 years later” gives things a properly epic feel.
The Szeth one is fantastic - it starts with an iconic line, has an engaging magic battle scene, and sets up a central mystery: why did the Parshendi betray the alliance and have Gavilar assassinated. It explains enough but not too much of the context (mechanics of Szeth’s ‘magic’ powers: yes; details of the concept of Truthless and reasons behind Shin veneration of stone: no).
But the Cenn one has the combined challenges that this isn’t a main character, dies (though we don’t yet know it) at the end of the scene, and isn’t an interesting person in and of himself. If I was the editor, I’d be asking “Why can’t we have the Kaladin POV here?” But the more we see of Kaladin, the clearer it becomes why his introduction had to be done this way. The contrast between Kaladin in the Cenn-POV chapter and the despairing Kaladin in the slave wagon in the next chapter gains its power and drama from two things: the contrast between who Kaladin was then and now, and the contrast between how others see Kaladin and how he sees himself. Kaladin in that battle wouldn’t have seen himself as the heroic, nearly-miraculous figure his soldiers see him as: rescuing Cenn by fighting six-on-one and killing all his enemies in a matter of seconds, then turning into a healer and bandaging his wounds; training his men to operate as a unit unlike anyone else on the battlefield; spending most of his pay on bribing the support staff to evacuate his wounded; bribing other commanders to give him recruits who seemed militarily useless. He’d have taken that for granted. Kaladin (later) reacts to being pretty much miraculously resurrected by despairing and thinking he’s a failure. The switch of perspective at the start is necessary for us to realize early on that the way Kaladin percieves himself does not line up with objective reality or with other people’s perceptions, and necessary for us to realize how impressive he was, and how others reacted to him, before his enslavement. It’s the essential backdrop for all the horrible early chapters in the slave wagons and Bridge 4. But the necessity of that only becomes apparent once the reader has spent a while with Kaladin.
The second thing I’m noticing is that, while on my first read-through I was overwhelmed and not picking up on this, Sanderson does leave us a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. In the first chapter, four people are named: Kalak, Jezrien, Talenel, and Ishar. Then, only a few pages later, Szeth passes the states “depicting the Ten Heralds from ancient Vorin theology”, naming four: “Jezerezah, Ishi, Kelek, Talenelat.” The names are similar enough that it’s possible to put the pieces together. Even in Kaladin’s first chaptet, the mention of windspren stucking things to other things can recall Szeth’s Full Lashings.
Another thing that jumped out at me: in the first chapter, Kelek mentions “red, orange, and violet” blood on the battlefield. Parshendi blood is orange, but who on Roshar has violet blood?
Jasnah’s justification of killing the four thieves with no trial never sat well with me
But after knowing that Travangian definitely had the means to stop them and put them in jail - not like what she said to Shallan that he was weak and he can’t stop them - and it was probably his doing leaving them roaming around to set a trap for her..
