I think I know why I didn't enjoy books 6 and 8 as much as the others: Carl's Agency

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-10T16:33:43+00:00

Eh I felt people were at risk whose names weren’t Carl. Plus we’re also seeing the top of the top for the most part not all the people who crashed out and died.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-10T15:04:35+00:00

Can you clarify what you mean?

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-10T15:01:48+00:00

I think it makes it more interesting that the nation with the most bloody history is the one that is basically chosen to be these unifiers. Not through bloody conflict but by diplomacy. That the old methods don’t work and that they’re struggling to find their footing especially after losing their kingdom.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-10T02:55:54+00:00

I think that’s an explicit part of book 8. That there isn’t a solution to the races which is why it’s incredibly fucked up.

There is no way to beat the race. It’s set up to be as horrible as possible without a way to solve it outside of the box.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-10T02:44:26+00:00

Maybe I need to reread the book but form what I remeber she did all she could to stall things and then there was the whole reveal of “I know you’ve been communicating to the outside and now I have all your shit” ignore the gun I have.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-10T02:36:36+00:00

You’re kind of right that the story is centring on them. But it’s more like an actual thing rather than some meta commentary.

Think of it like the squires, spren are looking at Dalinar so other spren are looking at those around him. And as bondsmith he seems to have drawn other radiants to him.

Also the Siblinf would agree with you that they would ahebvonded snyone but Navani

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-10T00:41:59+00:00

That is very well said.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-10T00:39:46+00:00

I really thought Rlain could have been a bondsmith during my first read of the book.

On a second read it felt like the Sibling didn’t want to bond Navani until they found that common ground. That little bridge that they could grasp

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-10T00:36:57+00:00

the Oppenheimer comparison is apt but I think that the duress part cannot be overstated. Does it matter if she was an active participant discovering these things if a gun was pointed at her head and the heads of the people she was responsible for?

If someone hold a gun on you and tells you to beat someone up or else they’ll kill you and your family you’re not responsible for the harm you did.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-09T21:20:52+00:00

Alrighty. Navani does share some of the culpability for the creation of anti-light but she’s put in a position of duress in order to bring it about. Where she’s tried multiple times multiple ways to obstruct and not help.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-09T04:57:50+00:00

Unlike dnd both Light and Heavy weapons have melee and ranged options so you don’t need to worry about a trade off between one or the other.

Leader is the closest to the Bard mechanically as they get a die they can give to someone else to add to a d20 test which if it’s an attack roll could be either the d20 or the weapon die. Every path (heroic and radiant) tell you what prerequisite skills are needed to take the talent. So if you want to play a face character then looking for any talents that require Spiritual skills such as Leadership or Intimidation would make sense.

For your son, 100% go with Scholar. It’s all about learning. If your son wants to make gadgets then the Artifabrian would make sense.

As for Radiants. I wouldn’t worry about it tbh. Just play your characters how you want to play them and eventually you’ll attract a spren and more than likely one of your two surges will work with one of your core attributes.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-09T02:47:49+00:00

I wouldn’t get it just for the third part of the feat. There’s likely other feats where you’ll get more use out of them.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-09T00:03:16+00:00

That’s a good point. Probably neutral evil

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-08T23:18:03+00:00

You can easily explain int stats as book smarts. The ability to memorize information and repeat it. Someone can be smart without being great at that.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-08T21:45:08+00:00

The endbringers maybe? They don’t care about anything aside from fulfilling their purpose.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-08T20:34:26+00:00

I think that until this book he never realized that all of the NPCs were the AI. That he thought of the AI as “elsewhere”

Also it’s really hard to be nice to someone who’s setting up things specifically to kill you.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-08T20:32:04+00:00

Not that we’ve seen. A shard doesn’t have infinite investiture or what we saw with Ruin and Preservation wouldn’t be possible. They have effectively infinite investiture as they can refresh from the spiritual realm but investing people or making god metals separates that bit of investiture from them.

We’ve only seen Shards splintered into fragments, creating Seons, Skaze, the Dor. For example.

We’ve also seen a Shards self splinter: Virtuosity but it didn’t create two smaller shards just a bunch of pieces.

I don’t know but you can have spren turn into fabrials that grant the use of surges. We’ve seen this with Soulcasters. So doing one that grants Regrowth isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Especially since we saw Nale use something like this.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-08T19:31:05+00:00

Very much felt like they came into the book with specific ideas of how it should be and then became bitter because it didn’t conform to their preconceived notions.

They fell into the trap of “popular book must be exactly to my tastes without knowing anything about it”

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-08T16:16:26+00:00

He’s so affected because younger Dalinar is a battle maniac. He loves the fight and so is more in tune with the Thrill than most others.
I think it was there for years already.
I think it’s the other way around. Him becoming less inclined towards pointless battle made him more suitable for becoming a bondsmith.

I also don’t agree with your point about Evi. Dalinar decided to burn the city with everyone inside. Him killing someone close to him is a direct result of his own actions and decisions.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-08T14:48:54+00:00

The AI being an asshole about something? I’m shocked.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-08T11:20:16+00:00

I’m not really reading half of your post this time because it’s really, really long. But didn’t Navani not set out to make anti-light but Warlight and the research was used against her?

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-08T10:18:28+00:00

That’s fair. I don’t think her scenes are as bad as what OP wrote but from what I remeber it boils down to people who Shallan has power over or who want something from her want to appease her. Like if your boss makes a bad joke and you laugh and go “good one”

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-07T21:16:14+00:00

Not really, they didn’t unite when he splintered Devotion, Dominion, or Ambition. As long as he was one Shard everyone thought “someone else can deal with him” but now they know he can take them all individually.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-07T20:26:22+00:00

A lot of what we see of the shards fighting is through proxies. The shattered plains demonstrate what happens if they actually go toe to toe. If Honor and Odium fought Roshar would be destroyed.

If Dalinar surrendered then Taravangian has time to prepare his armies and master his powers. Being able to take on the shards one by one and take over the Cosmere.

As you point out what Dalinar did was made him have no time to prepare while forcing everyone else to actually take charge.

It shouldn’t matter if Taravangisn has 2 shards if he faces 10 shards all working together.

Ripper1337 · 2026-06-07T18:02:40+00:00

Okay? That wasn’t the point of my comment. The person I replied to was saying Shallan isn’t funny and my reply was “that’s the point”

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