I read El's coldness almost as an analytical detachment. More like a classic art critic, that describes the most emotional works of art with a scholarly prose.
Just that quick talk of Lezian made me realize Brandon had his cake and ate it too with him. Authors sometimes have hated enemies die in a brutally satisfying way, which feels good to read but implies that heroes are good for “sinking to their level.” Other times they die in unceremonious ways, which is usually a better thematic ending but not always that satisfying to read… Brandon had BOTH Kaladin brutally murdering Lezian, _then_ he died in a meaningless way like the little unimportant dumbass he was
The interesting thing is, assuming by the time they fight they have near modern day tech, aluminum will be common and accessible for both societies. So being able to Soulcasts it becomes less of a big deal.
@@DriaEpley1431 Roshar might not bother to develop industrial techniques to the same scale as people on Earth would do, precisely due to their ability to soulcast/surgebind for technology.
@@Loomx5 That’s a great point, however Scadrial would, so either way both societies could mass produce aluminum which means neither would have an advantage as the original comment implies.
I think Bran the man has said that Scadrial futuristic time would be more like ours, with tech mixed with some magic but mostly tech, while Stormlight future would be more of advanced magic than science (there's still science in like Fabrials but it's way more magic than technology)
I’d say more “good luck Roshar” really. They might think they’re immune to everything and anything out there with aluminum armor, but you know what goes through an inch of aluminum as if it wasn’t even there? Lead bullets. We might be marching to a rude awakening in the Cosmere that no matter how cool and wondrous magic is, it’s not got much of a leg up on the horrors of real technology.
A battle of champions to the death implies combat but does not require it. I think it would be interesting if Sanderson does go with the "child champion" route and Dalinar can't bring himself to kill a child (especially Gavinor). If that happens, I can see neither killing the other and Dalinar eventually dying of old age 15 years later, giving us our whole gap between books 5 and 6.
New listener, really like the episodes so far. Would love to see you guys discuss must haves/ must avoids when the stormlight/cosmere TV series eventually gets made
I'm getting Grand Admiral Thrawn vibes off of El and I don't think the fused were trying to kill Jezrien, they were trying to capture him and I think the fused were afraid of the knife being used against them in what they thought would be a horrific fight against the Herald.
"He who quiets" relates to the quieting of rhythms, specifically those not from odium. Moash got the title after silencing Jezrien, maybe El got the title when he ended Taln's sacrifice by the other heralds?
Hey guys! Ive ben going through your shardcasts lately. Huge Fan of the books have really enjoyed your opinions as I dont have many people to talk to about the books. I was undere the impression that "EL" was in cohoots with Taravodium when he was saying "We" in the lezian scene. am I off on that one??
From the little we know about half-shards, the idea seems to be that the shields are created in a way that suffuses them with Stormlight so that a shardblade “eats” that light instead of the actual half-shard’s soul, blocking it until the light runs out…. What if El has found a way to do that with his own body, and the reason he changes his carapace for metal is that he can somehow block shardblades with it until he runs out of voidlight?
Dangerous to assume that, what we’ve seen from ascendants who bothered to describe what it was like is that you learn the _power’s_ history. For instance, Sazed could see that Rashek had pushed the planet, then made volcanoes, then created microbes to eat the ash… He knew all this with certainty, because it was the history of what the power did. But he still had to guess that these events in quick succession meant Rashek slowly adapted to the power, at first being a stupid child making big moves with huge drawbacks and eventually learning to be more subtle… If whatever Rayse was doing to show up as a singer didn’t involve actively using his investiture, there’s a good chance Taravangian wouldn’t see it in the power’s memory
Two points. 1)WoB says that Investiture can't heal a wound with aluminum/ralkalest in it. If El's skin-plates are aluminum, he'd have to heal naturally. Much more likely: he would die. 2)The Singers have carapace. I'm not clear on whether it covers their faces, but if so, they might not be able to signal emotion with expressions, which would make them lean more heavily on vibration (or magic sounds, like the Rhythms). (Side note: do we know how anything much on Roshar smells? I don't remember any vivid olfactory images from Brandon. Do the Singers even have a sense of smell?)
Not all forms have carapace on the face, but some do. I wonder if the whole”we emote through the rhythms” thing got started because without it some singers could emote but some couldn’t. The weird thing is that, under _extreme_ emotions, singers seem to default on facial and bodily displays. Raboniel cried, curled up and shook when she killed her daughter. Venli cried and couldn’t stand still when she found out her mother could be alive. It’s super sketchy that, when their emotions overtake them, they don’t just hum a song. It makes it seem like emoting through rhythms is something they societally learned to do, and wasn’t their natural state. For instance, if you (for some dark and fucked up reason) raised a child to believe that smiling is an expression of sadness, you’d expect this forced change to not work specifically when something like “my parents died” happened, not “I dropped the last pancake of the floor.” Even though human societies have grown slightly different ways of interacting emotionally, it’s on the absurd extremes that our expression suddenly becomes universal… so, as I said, super sketchy that the singers work that same way
I think you people are right on the money with he who quiets being an executioner. Buuut about the possible deeper/more magical implication, crack theory: what do you think about him being able to quench rhythms by producing the mathematical counter version of a rhythm? Basically how active noise cancelling stuff works.
Based off the "moash hates humans and probably won't like taravangian" discussion, I all of a sudden had a vision if moash being odiums champion, slaying Dalinars champion, and then turning around and killing taravangian and taking up odium himself. Moash as odium. Think about it.
The messenger whispered. "Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty. They sat atop the world's highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing." "Huh?" She looked to him. "'Can beauty be taken from a man?' the first asked the second. "'It was taken from me,' the second replied. 'For I cannot remember it.' This man was blinded in a childhood accident. 'I pray to the God Beyond each night to restore my sight, so that I may find beauty again.'
Wait, I just read the pinned comment. Congratulations, Jess and Eric. "El" is not "of God." It's the actual Hebrew (and Phoenician and Canaanite) word for "god." It means "God".
It’s a common error because it’s somewhat common knowledge that names like “Gabriel” mean things like “the strength of God.” The mistake there is that it’s not “el” that means of god, but the ending “iel”
Here’s a crazy theory regarding Moashs’ blindness, he gets Hemalurgicly spiked so that he gains steel sight..? Is there a possibily that someone from scadrial who has knowlege of Hemalurgy could be on Roshar by the end of RoW?
I have a feeling Brandon has some big scenes planned from the beginning for book 5 and it's going to raise the stakes in such a way that a lot of the plot threads we've been following are just moot. Like what if the fighting in the last 10 days escalates and they accidentally break the world and everyone goes to Ashyn BEFORE the contest of Champions, and all the speculation on Champions is moot. but we don't care because wtf just happened. We might be thinking too small for Brandon in our guesses. It's his big epic after all.
Moash having lost his sight really stresses me out tbh. I mean, I never particularly cared about Moash himself as a character pre-blindness, but I feel like I kinda have to now because of what happened to him. I'm also just done with blind characters being either miraculously healed or killed off in fiction at this point, and it does seem very likely that Moash's fate would be either of those two. I really wish he hadn't been blinded in the first place. Ugh. But yeah, Moash who is now blind and El who has had his rhythms taken from him which makes him tone deaf in a way would make an interesting duo for sure.
@@Arezoo298195 Okay that was an interesting, very well-thought-out theory on Moash and his blindness for sure. Thanks for sharing it! Though it didn't really help with my main problem with that Moash losing his sight thing. My issue with it is that the way it happened felt too much like a punishment? That booktuber you linked as well as many Sanderfans in the fan community clearly interpret it that way, too. And blindness (or any kind of disability really) being a 'punishment' is one of those misconceptions we're still trying to fight against in the blind/disabled community to this day. I also worry that Moash could potentially be a very bad blind character rep if Sanderson doesn't take care of how he handles his arc in the future books. Stormlight Archive is one of my top of the tops favorites, and one of my favorite series potentially having a bad blind rep is what's giving me so much anxiety. Sorry for the long comment, but blind representation in media is something that I can't help but take seriously. 😬
@@doomslug6449 that’s very fair. I think though that we may be going through the trope of ‘you need to be blind to see’. If that’s the case then it may be just the first step in a redemption arc for him. I agree though that if he stays blind then he shouldn’t have sudden magic healing afterwards. But as Sanderson handled Rysn and her disability pretty well in Dawnshard I think we can hope he doesn’t handle this badly. It could be that we will see Moash take another few steps in the going bad direction before he is redeemed but I think that as long as he is then not just killed off as you say then it wouldn’t be a bad thing overall.
@@Arezoo298195 Tbh I don't love the you need to be blind to truly see trope either, if done in a way that overly romanticize the disability. But if his arc goes kind of like the way you described with him not immediately turning good just because he was blinded, then I could be satisfied with that. If he's going to be redeemed, I don't want it to happen only through him having realizations after having lost his sight, if that makes sense. Also yes, the way Sanderson handled Rysn's disability in Dawnshard does give me some optimism. 🖤
I thought the one who gave him the title "the one who quests" was the leader of the heavenly ones, not Leshwi. she brought him to her and with the whole conversation can you killed a king and can you kill a god.
Super late to this party, but just throwing something out there- I assumed all along, and still think, that Rayse didn't like El. I think El was not welcome on Roshar until Taravangian took Odium, and that's part of why we never saw him before the end of RoW.
El would be fascinated by moash because he's a human fascinated by singers they are going to be a couple I'm calling it now i ship Eloash Edit: glad to see eric grace and Ian agree wholeheartedly; )
I don’t know why you’re/we’re so convinced that all of Book 5 will be the “final 10 days”. I’ll be shocked if it’s even more than two parts. If anything that needs to be done in the first third or half of Book 5. The next half needs to deal with the repercussions and setting to explore the greater Cosmere and this “Great War” El keeps hammering about.
I don't think the contest of champions is going to happen so soon in the book, to be honest. Part Three at the earliest. I definitely could be wrong. I mean, we have five more books to deal with that other stuff. -Eric
It occurred to me the other day that the fused could take the anti-stormlight to the cognitive realm and start killing spren like no tomorrow. It’s convenient that Adolin and Shallan are in shadesmar isn’t it?
Sorry for this to come out so late today; I was a little busy getting married to Jess (LadyLameness)
How dare you prioritize your marriage over a bunch of internet strangers
Holy crap congrats!!!!!
Congratulations
Oh my gosh, congrats!!!! :D
Congratulations, Eric!!!
I read El's coldness almost as an analytical detachment. More like a classic art critic, that describes the most emotional works of art with a scholarly prose.
'Them Who Quiets' is officially the best ship in the Cosmere.
How would you write an Ell & Moash Ship? Moell? Ellash? Moellash? Hmmm...
“thems the quieters”
@@RavensRants love your videos bro
@@RavensRants Billie Ellash
@@vamsiampolu8438 Lol I was about to post the same thing.
Just that quick talk of Lezian made me realize Brandon had his cake and ate it too with him. Authors sometimes have hated enemies die in a brutally satisfying way, which feels good to read but implies that heroes are good for “sinking to their level.” Other times they die in unceremonious ways, which is usually a better thematic ending but not always that satisfying to read… Brandon had BOTH Kaladin brutally murdering Lezian, _then_ he died in a meaningless way like the little unimportant dumbass he was
Can not wait for cosmere crushes and cosmere beefs part two!
Congratulations on getting married Eric!
Please pass on to Ian that his beard suits him. Another great episode guys!
I totally forgot that you can make aluminum with soulcasting, if Roshar ever fights scadrial.... good luck scadrial.
The interesting thing is, assuming by the time they fight they have near modern day tech, aluminum will be common and accessible for both societies. So being able to Soulcasts it becomes less of a big deal.
@@DriaEpley1431 Roshar might not bother to develop industrial techniques to the same scale as people on Earth would do, precisely due to their ability to soulcast/surgebind for technology.
@@Loomx5 That’s a great point, however Scadrial would, so either way both societies could mass produce aluminum which means neither would have an advantage as the original comment implies.
I think Bran the man has said that Scadrial futuristic time would be more like ours, with tech mixed with some magic but mostly tech, while Stormlight future would be more of advanced magic than science (there's still science in like Fabrials but it's way more magic than technology)
I’d say more “good luck Roshar” really. They might think they’re immune to everything and anything out there with aluminum armor, but you know what goes through an inch of aluminum as if it wasn’t even there? Lead bullets.
We might be marching to a rude awakening in the Cosmere that no matter how cool and wondrous magic is, it’s not got much of a leg up on the horrors of real technology.
So El is basically Grace's Ba-ado-Mishtam. Got it.
A battle of champions to the death implies combat but does not require it. I think it would be interesting if Sanderson does go with the "child champion" route and Dalinar can't bring himself to kill a child (especially Gavinor). If that happens, I can see neither killing the other and Dalinar eventually dying of old age 15 years later, giving us our whole gap between books 5 and 6.
That's an interesting thought! It could also mean Dalinar taking his own life.
I am waiting for Grace to do voice work!!!! That delivery was like maniacal and intrigued but like also nice...I like that idea....
Rhythms are what connect singers to the world and to each other. So, while he isn't ostracized in a human sense, he was ostracized in a Singer sense
Really like the discussion of El. I was very intrigued by his character. I think he'll be a big character in book 5.
New listener, really like the episodes so far. Would love to see you guys discuss must haves/ must avoids when the stormlight/cosmere TV series eventually gets made
Great idea for an episode! -Eric
I'm getting Grand Admiral Thrawn vibes off of El and I don't think the fused were trying to kill Jezrien, they were trying to capture him and I think the fused were afraid of the knife being used against them in what they thought would be a horrific fight against the Herald.
"He who quiets" relates to the quieting of rhythms, specifically those not from odium. Moash got the title after silencing Jezrien, maybe El got the title when he ended Taln's sacrifice by the other heralds?
If you took a drink every time Eric said some variation of "Stuff to do" in regards to book 5, you would take a lot of drinks
I think El used division to reap out the his carapace and used voidlight to heal up after replacing the carapace with the strange metal.
As a Fused i wonder if El's metal carapace also is a "the man youre going to kill deserves to know youre on the way" as "He Who Quiets"
Crack theory: Roshar explodes at the end of book 5 and everyone goes to Ashyn
Uno reverse!
L has metal on him? Hemolurgy obviously.
Hey guys! Ive ben going through your shardcasts lately. Huge Fan of the books have really enjoyed your opinions as I dont have many people to talk to about the books.
I was undere the impression that "EL" was in cohoots with Taravodium when he was saying "We" in the lezian scene.
am I off on that one??
From the little we know about half-shards, the idea seems to be that the shields are created in a way that suffuses them with Stormlight so that a shardblade “eats” that light instead of the actual half-shard’s soul, blocking it until the light runs out…. What if El has found a way to do that with his own body, and the reason he changes his carapace for metal is that he can somehow block shardblades with it until he runs out of voidlight?
Taravangian got all of Odiums memories so he should remember being different shapes like a singer
Dangerous to assume that, what we’ve seen from ascendants who bothered to describe what it was like is that you learn the _power’s_ history. For instance, Sazed could see that Rashek had pushed the planet, then made volcanoes, then created microbes to eat the ash… He knew all this with certainty, because it was the history of what the power did. But he still had to guess that these events in quick succession meant Rashek slowly adapted to the power, at first being a stupid child making big moves with huge drawbacks and eventually learning to be more subtle…
If whatever Rayse was doing to show up as a singer didn’t involve actively using his investiture, there’s a good chance Taravangian wouldn’t see it in the power’s memory
Wit is the one always talking about art and Beauty
Two points.
1)WoB says that Investiture can't heal a wound with aluminum/ralkalest in it. If El's skin-plates are aluminum, he'd have to heal naturally. Much more likely: he would die.
2)The Singers have carapace. I'm not clear on whether it covers their faces, but if so, they might not be able to signal emotion with expressions, which would make them lean more heavily on vibration (or magic sounds, like the Rhythms).
(Side note: do we know how anything much on Roshar smells? I don't remember any vivid olfactory images from Brandon. Do the Singers even have a sense of smell?)
perhaps carapace could heal around aluminum, after all its highly variable depending on form
Not all forms have carapace on the face, but some do. I wonder if the whole”we emote through the rhythms” thing got started because without it some singers could emote but some couldn’t. The weird thing is that, under _extreme_ emotions, singers seem to default on facial and bodily displays. Raboniel cried, curled up and shook when she killed her daughter. Venli cried and couldn’t stand still when she found out her mother could be alive. It’s super sketchy that, when their emotions overtake them, they don’t just hum a song. It makes it seem like emoting through rhythms is something they societally learned to do, and wasn’t their natural state.
For instance, if you (for some dark and fucked up reason) raised a child to believe that smiling is an expression of sadness, you’d expect this forced change to not work specifically when something like “my parents died” happened, not “I dropped the last pancake of the floor.” Even though human societies have grown slightly different ways of interacting emotionally, it’s on the absurd extremes that our expression suddenly becomes universal… so, as I said, super sketchy that the singers work that same way
I think you people are right on the money with he who quiets being an executioner. Buuut about the possible deeper/more magical implication, crack theory: what do you think about him being able to quench rhythms by producing the mathematical counter version of a rhythm? Basically how active noise cancelling stuff works.
Based off the "moash hates humans and probably won't like taravangian" discussion, I all of a sudden had a vision if moash being odiums champion, slaying Dalinars champion, and then turning around and killing taravangian and taking up odium himself.
Moash as odium. Think about it.
The messenger whispered. "Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty. They sat atop the world's highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing."
"Huh?" She looked to him.
"'Can beauty be taken from a man?' the first asked the second.
"'It was taken from me,' the second replied. 'For I cannot remember it.' This man was blinded in a childhood accident. 'I pray to the God Beyond each night to restore my sight, so that I may find beauty again.'
Wait, I just read the pinned comment. Congratulations, Jess and Eric.
"El" is not "of God." It's the actual Hebrew (and Phoenician and Canaanite) word for "god." It means "God".
It’s a common error because it’s somewhat common knowledge that names like “Gabriel” mean things like “the strength of God.” The mistake there is that it’s not “el” that means of god, but the ending “iel”
I can't wait to see more of El!
I HAVE to believe that the metal on El's body is related to Hemalurgy, or at least one of the metallic arts.
We can only hope! All I want now is a surgebinder who also has metallic arts.
@@SpiceWeazel Hoid
Here’s a crazy theory regarding Moashs’ blindness, he gets Hemalurgicly spiked so that he gains steel sight..? Is there a possibily that someone from scadrial who has knowlege of Hemalurgy could be on Roshar by the end of RoW?
Could be Kelsier! We know that Kelsier spiked his own eye for steel sight, and he is quite possibly aware of Moash's existence.
"Crisis alert! CRISIS ALERT!"
I have a feeling Brandon has some big scenes planned from the beginning for book 5 and it's going to raise the stakes in such a way that a lot of the plot threads we've been following are just moot. Like what if the fighting in the last 10 days escalates and they accidentally break the world and everyone goes to Ashyn BEFORE the contest of Champions, and all the speculation on Champions is moot. but we don't care because wtf just happened. We might be thinking too small for Brandon in our guesses. It's his big epic after all.
Wondering if El is somehow related to Elindel in Mistborn. I'm probably completely wrong, but he was also called El.
Elendel is named after elend, The final emperor, I doubt that there is any connection between the two.
Moash having lost his sight really stresses me out tbh. I mean, I never particularly cared about Moash himself as a character pre-blindness, but I feel like I kinda have to now because of what happened to him. I'm also just done with blind characters being either miraculously healed or killed off in fiction at this point, and it does seem very likely that Moash's fate would be either of those two. I really wish he hadn't been blinded in the first place. Ugh. But yeah, Moash who is now blind and El who has had his rhythms taken from him which makes him tone deaf in a way would make an interesting duo for sure.
There can be a different interpretation to the blindness. Check out this take:
ua-cam.com/video/_eFO5tWu2HQ/v-deo.html
@@Arezoo298195 Okay that was an interesting, very well-thought-out theory on Moash and his blindness for sure. Thanks for sharing it! Though it didn't really help with my main problem with that Moash losing his sight thing. My issue with it is that the way it happened felt too much like a punishment? That booktuber you linked as well as many Sanderfans in the fan community clearly interpret it that way, too. And blindness (or any kind of disability really) being a 'punishment' is one of those misconceptions we're still trying to fight against in the blind/disabled community to this day. I also worry that Moash could potentially be a very bad blind character rep if Sanderson doesn't take care of how he handles his arc in the future books. Stormlight Archive is one of my top of the tops favorites, and one of my favorite series potentially having a bad blind rep is what's giving me so much anxiety. Sorry for the long comment, but blind representation in media is something that I can't help but take seriously. 😬
@@doomslug6449 that’s very fair. I think though that we may be going through the trope of ‘you need to be blind to see’. If that’s the case then it may be just the first step in a redemption arc for him. I agree though that if he stays blind then he shouldn’t have sudden magic healing afterwards. But as Sanderson handled Rysn and her disability pretty well in Dawnshard I think we can hope he doesn’t handle this badly. It could be that we will see Moash take another few steps in the going bad direction before he is redeemed but I think that as long as he is then not just killed off as you say then it wouldn’t be a bad thing overall.
@@Arezoo298195 Tbh I don't love the you need to be blind to truly see trope either, if done in a way that overly romanticize the disability. But if his arc goes kind of like the way you described with him not immediately turning good just because he was blinded, then I could be satisfied with that. If he's going to be redeemed, I don't want it to happen only through him having realizations after having lost his sight, if that makes sense. Also yes, the way Sanderson handled Rysn's disability in Dawnshard does give me some optimism. 🖤
I thought the one who gave him the title "the one who quests" was the leader of the heavenly ones, not Leshwi. she brought him to her and with the whole conversation can you killed a king and can you kill a god.
When are you going to talk about the Trident and the possible implications cosmere wide?
Are Raboniel and L the sanest of the Fused like Nale and Ishar are the "sanest" of the heralds.
Hmmm, yes, ishar, sane.
I think I would call Ash and Nale the sanest, neither are sane, but at least they form truly coherent thoughts.
@@nroke1684 That Ishar joke never gets old, I've milked it for so long. I'd say L Ash
We all thought Ash’s insanity was her hatred of being worshiped… Turns out she’s just shy. Her real insanity is just thinking Ishar is sane
Book 5 is gonna have 1 part called the quieting and those 2 are gonna go crazy lol
Has it been confirmed that is the return of El, and not Raboniel, that caused Leshwi to sing to the Rhythm of Agony?
The Voidbringers brought a lack of the rhythms, so He Who Quiets is literally The Void bringer
Do you know if there will be a May stream?
oh my gosh, EL is Grand Admiral Thrawn!!!!
Super late to this party, but just throwing something out there- I assumed all along, and still think, that Rayse didn't like El. I think El was not welcome on Roshar until Taravangian took Odium, and that's part of why we never saw him before the end of RoW.
El would be fascinated by moash because he's a human fascinated by singers they are going to be a couple I'm calling it now i ship Eloash
Edit: glad to see eric grace and Ian agree wholeheartedly; )
I would like to oppose the Heralds being targeted ever basically. Killing a Herald ends the Desolation
I'm just imagining El is just a weeaboo for humanity.
I don’t know why you’re/we’re so convinced that all of Book 5 will be the “final 10 days”. I’ll be shocked if it’s even more than two parts. If anything that needs to be done in the first third or half of Book 5. The next half needs to deal with the repercussions and setting to explore the greater Cosmere and this “Great War” El keeps hammering about.
I don't think the contest of champions is going to happen so soon in the book, to be honest. Part Three at the earliest. I definitely could be wrong. I mean, we have five more books to deal with that other stuff. -Eric
If Taravangian takes he title away from Moash that's just another thing the light eyes took from him
Yes pls give us Them Who Quiets
It occurred to me the other day that the fused could take the anti-stormlight to the cognitive realm and start killing spren like no tomorrow. It’s convenient that Adolin and Shallan are in shadesmar isn’t it?
Taravangian was Moash's boss, though
That was before he decided that all of humanity, not just the lighteyes, were inherently corrupt and morally inferior to the singers.
@@jimanderson463 will it matter when Vangie is no longer human either?
I didn't realize L had a human fetish
Gavilar as a cognitive shadow will be odium's champion
lol
NewEST? How many Odiums have there been?
At least 2
Just two. I'm pretty sure Taravodium gets called "newest odium" in the book
@@voidsabre_ If Todium was #2, then wouldn't El just say "new Odium". Newest sounds like it implies multiple new Odiums at some point.
2
@@jdrenner hmmh not really
Y'all...what if El is Elend?
0.o
O