#stormlights your fucking archive

[andromeda-lv]

Shallan really got that Y/N x 💋👑 alethkar prince 👑💋 deal didn't she

[hesina]

I know we put a lot of the blame on kaladin for the "and for my boon" thing but that is just straight up dalinars fault. Kaladin came to him and TOLD him that Amaram had murdered his old squad. In turn Dalinar dismissed him (and proceeded to dress him down for insubordination) and then after a few weeks made Amaram a fucking knight radiant. Any reasonable leader would be able to see that how that would push any reasonable man to brash actions.

We don't get dalinar's pov for most of wor so we don't see precisely how he saw Kaladins allegations against Amaram but I am certain that he dismissed them until after the duel. Not necessarily because he believed Kaladin, but because Amaram refused to help, though I do think that Kaladin reaffirming his grievances made Dalinar reassess.

It's frustrating rereading wor and seeing the internal biases that Dalinar holds against Kaladin knowing that what comes of it is Kaladin thanking Dalinar for doing the bare minimum. Months after their conversation.

[dearherondale]

I'm reading the Sunlit Man and when I said I want Kaladin to survive WaT I meant it as HUMAN

no wait monkey paw don't put a finger down wait why is Kaladin becoming Honor no this is not- !!!!!

[renarin-spren]

reading a Sanderson book is like. wow I can't wait to read the most fucked up insane sibling dynamic ever

[rrenarinn]

To Szeth’s people, a dying request was sacred. He took the king’s hand, dipping it in the man’s own blood, then used it to scrawl on the wood, Brother.

You must find the most second-hand embarrassment inducing words a man can read.

[taravangians-storming-balls]

Please be honest I need to know what the hell is going on.

[shouldprobablybereading]

Based on that quote @isdalinarhot mentioned, because I’m not sure her non science husband would understand it’s supposed to be a compliment

[sparklestheunicorn]

Me thinking about shallan davar and her relationship with her dad

[gloryofdawn]

So like

Does anyone else think about the parallels between Dalinar and Mayalaran? Like a lot?

Because good God, I sure do.

The "You cannot have my pain" and "You cannot have my sacrifice" scenes almost run one to one against each other, honestly.

In each, the focus character is, until the most critical moment, at the mercy of an unjust ruler -- Odium for Dalinar, and arguably the entire upper echelon of Lasting Integrity for Maya. This ruler seeks to use the character to achieve their victory. Dalinar will be Odium's champion, Maya will be the tool that keeps any more Honorspren from leaving Lasting Integrity to become a deadeye (from their point of view, anyways). Amusingly, each scene also has one of the Kholin brothers watching on helplessly, though I don't know that the identity of the observing characters necessarily bears much literary weight. Anyways, the rulers are all but crowing their victory when the unthinkable happens. Dalinar refuses to reject the responsibility and guilt of his war crimes. A deadeye speaks. You cannot have my pain. You cannot have my sacrifice. I killed my wife. I chose my own fate. The balance of power immediately changes, with Dalinar spearheading a spanking so hard that Taravangian is probably feeling the aftereffects and Mayalaran causing a completely upset in the trial that doesn't just see Adolin victorious, but fucking unseats the Honorspren hierarchy.

We haven't seen much else of Maya, obviously, but I'm very curious and very excited to see how far these parallels go. Will the millennia spent as a deadeye prove similar to the experience of having memories suppressed by Cultivation? Will Maya and Adolin bring about a revival of the deadeyes like Dalinar and the Stormfather revived the Knights Radiant? What's Maya's place in Cultivationspren society, and will her time as a deadeye have her treated similarly to the bogeyman Dalinar was regarded as before he got his shit together? There are so many possibilities that I'm concerned that they won't fit in KoWT. I'm sure Sanderson has a plan and is going to treat this as the important plotline it obviously is, but Maya has rocketed up to like my second or third favorite character (partially because Dalinar is my favorite and these parallels are phenomenal) and I need this.

[greatshell-rider]

i keep thinking about that interaction between azure and adolin where she goes “yeah i just up and left, stopped being royalty lmao” and adolin flips his shit. what about RESPONSIBILITY. what about OBLIGATIONS. what about BIRTH RIGHT. you can never just LEAVE. you must SEE IT THROUGH TO THE END. honey you got something going on there hm? a lil something repressed maybe? hm?

[sedgewicke]

The realization that the next in line for My (Actively Living) Stormlight Hyperfixation Character is...

Elhokar.

...

...

...

yea yea i got some fuckkin memes for this let me just

[biaoba]

Say what you will about Oathbringer, but Kaladin's arc of meeting two groups of people he has always been prejudiced against (listeners and (albeit lower-class) lighteyes) and befriending them both, finding more in common with them than he ever imagined and realizing that the war they've been leading is practically pointless, only for them to come to a standoff where he has to pick a side????? In theory, that's a fucking SERVE!!!!! I'm on a re-read right now so I can't remember exactly how sanderson managed to fuck it up but I'm excited to find out!

[hesina]

I haven't gotten to the scene where amaram admits to all the shit he did to kaladin but if I remember right dalinar never apologizes for not believing kaladin... I'm actually so mad about that rn

[jewishdainix]

“Ha!” she said. “You have been tricked, god! I am Hualinam’lunanaki’akilu, the daughter of Numuhukumakiaki’aialunamor, the Fal’ala’liki’nor, he who drew the Bow of Hours at the dawn of the new millennium, heralding the years of change! If you were to kill me, you would be violating the ancient pact of the Seven Peaks, and so must now forfeit the battle!”

Nikli blinked in what seemed like a very human show of utter confusion. “I . . . have no idea what any of that means,” he said.

Jdjdkdkkdk i love her

[cosmerelists]

Ranking Various Cosmere Fantasy Swears

If there's one thing Brandon Sanderson likes, it's avoiding any real swear words in favor of Fantasy Swears. I am genuinely a huge fan of this technique. So here how I'd rank some of the ones I can remember! (And thanks to 17th Shard [here and here] and to Reddit for compiling some lists!).

#14: Colors (Warbreaker)

This one feels a little bit...lazy, I guess? Like yes, Warbreaker's magic is color-dependent, so colors are a big part of the world-building, so I guess it makes sense that people use it as a swear. But it feels like if, in fantasy USA, people swore by "eagles" all the time: "Eagles! I dropped my hamburger!"

#13: Moons (Tress of the Emerald Sea)

I mean same problem as with "colors"! Yes, the moons are a big aspect of the worldbuilding, but it just feels like a semi-boring swear. Although maybe that's just the swear that Tress tends to use.

#12: Shadows/Shades (Shadows for Silence/Sunlit Man)

Okay, maybe this one is a bit boring, but anything Threndy-related gets extra credit from me. So therefore I think this is one of the least boring of the "basically boring descriptors of world building elements" swears.

#11: By the Lord Ruler (Mistborn)

I mean...eh. This one is world specific, but it's basically like swearing by god only in this case the god is the Lord Ruler, right? It makes sense 'n' all but isn't as interesting as some of the later ones.

#10: By the Survivor's Scars (Mistborn)

This one is better because it's more specific--Kelsier's scars are rich with meaning, and swearing by them does feel like it carries cultural weight.

#9: By Harmony's Armbands (Mistborn)

Putting them all in a line like this...I just like how they get ever more specific. Now we're swearing by Harmony's feruchemical armlets? Okay!

#8: God Beyond (Shadows for Silence)

I mean, Threnody is, like, haunted by a god's corpse, so I think any of their god-related swears are more interesting as a result.

#7: Nights / Nights afire (Emperor's Soul)

I like this one because I just don't know what it refers to and it seems kinda creepy. What are nights on fire for??

#6: Rust and Ruin (Mistborn)

Frankly, the alliteration gets this one extra points. And "Rust and Ruin!" just feels like a good thing to shout when you've stubbed your toe.

#5: Storms/storming/Stormfather (Stormlight Archive)

I know this one SHOULD lose points for being exactly the sort of boring descriptive swear I maligned above...but I enjoy this one simply because it's such a clear linguistic stand-in for "fuck" and that leads to such amusing translations as "Kaladin Fuckblessed" or the "Fuckfather" and that just never stops being funny to me.

#4: Herald body parts (Stormlight Archive)

I didn't notice until looking at various compiled lists of Cosmere Fantasy Swears, but Rosharans really like to swear by specific Herald body parts, huh? From here: Kelek's breadth, Kelek's tongue, Ash's eyes, Ishar's soul, Nalan's hand, Pali's mind, Talat's hand...I'm a fan of this. It's interesting and feels culturally relevant.

#3: Glories Within (Stormlight Archive)

This one is just Szeth so far, but people speculate it's probably a Shin curse. That makes it interesting to me since we don't know a whole lot about the Shin. What inner glory are they using to swear?

#2: Starving (Stormlight Archive)

This one is pretty similar to "Storming," I suppose, in being a pretty clear linguistic stand-in for "fucking." But I just like that the food-obsessed Lift has her own personal swear relating to starvation.

#1: Lowly/Highly (Yumi and the Nightmare Painter)

I'm a big fan of the lowly/highly thing from Yumi & the Nightmare Painter, where words can be linguistically marked as meant in either a high way (complimentary) or a low way (insultingly). It's fun worldbuilding and leads to some comic beats in the novel. Plus, this post tickled me greatly: https://www.tumblr.com/cabinetcreature/722030379790401536?source=share. It's so true!

[utilitycaster]

Can you share your name examples? Please!

under a cut in case people feel like guessing or something

putting syllables together and they sound nice: literally almost any fantasy book that doesn't use modern names but like, off the top of my head: Essun from The Broken Earth Trilogy. Sabriel and Lirael from The Old Kingdom Trilogy. Shallan from the Stormlight Archives. The vast majority of women's names in ASOIAF that aren't too close to irl names. No shortage of names in Wheel of Time.

putting syllables together and they sound like arthuriana: Egwene (Wheel of Time) is the big one for me.

Slightly altered irl name: Bunch of names in ASOIAF notably Eddard and Alicent. Really common in actual play (Revvetha is sort of a joke but sort of not; Belizabeth).

Extremely apt character descriptor you know who you are: Kaladin of the Stormlight Archives. As a paladin stan I must stan and the character genuinely is great but like. c'mon man.

Mashup of irl names: Brennan Lee Mulligan does this EXTREMELY often most notably with Raphaniel.

Something meaningful in an irl language: SILAHA is a great example. Idk Dune probably did this.

Something meaningful in an elaborate self-created conlang: welcome to Lord of the Rings, an opportunity for Tolkien to take his conlangs for a test drive.

Something meaningful in a foreign language siri set alarm etc: self-explanatory. look to your left look to your right if no one at the D&D table used an Elvish Translator then it's bc they used the fantasy name generator for a different fantasy race.

IRL names not in common usage: I suppose it's not exclusively but The Locked Tomb does have Palamedes and this is also a Classic D&D Naming Strat.

This is Linda and she fights dragons: Robert Baratheon, whatever the fuck is going on in Dune, when D&D characters are named things like Kristen or Beauregard or Imogen or Ashton. Also obviously true in almost any Earth-set fantasy; I have a taste for like, regency/Napoleonic Wars-set fantasy novels and so people are just named things like Thomas and Catherine and they are worried about Their Place In Society but also they are wizards.

Series of complex and mysterious titles: The Man with the Thistledown Hair from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (speaking of normal-ass names in fantasy); The Emissary; The Man in Black. Often some kind of eldritch/otherworldly being but like, you could just decide that's your name in a D&D game. no one is stopping you.

Rigid Naming Conventions: offhand my problematic fave The Belgariad has some weird naming conventions (dryads all have names starting with X or, when softened into Tolnedran, Ce' as a prefix; acolytes of Aldur all have Bel- or Pol- prefixes to their names based on gender but the names themselves vary); the weird palindrome names in Stormlight Archives; The Vorkosigan Saga is sci fi and set in a future of our universe so many names are existing ones but the naming convention is often passing down the two grandfather's first names to the eldest son and other such things.

Pun or meme: again, D&D classic; Percival Friedrickstein Von Musel Klossowski De Rolo III, every Crown of Candy PC.

Fantasy name generator already covered. who knows how many people are using it. who knows what data set it uses.

Acronym: I believe this is what Tav is in BG3; This is also I believe where Thedas comes from.

Literally just a noun: Fjord, Keg; The Belgariad has characters who technically are going by codenames bc they are from The Spy Country but practically speaking I cannot actually recall what Silk's actual name is off the top of my head and I've read those books like 5 times and he's a major character. Shadowheart is i guess two nouns but it's the same principle.