Hello everyone, today is an episode, or it's another fireside for all you lovely listeners
out there. And it's a little bit of a deviation today because we're talking about something
I have been begging to cover since I've even really done like law in general. Today we'll
be following the massive, massive universe of the Stormlight archive series for people
who are a fan of Stormlight. They probably know that these are these books written by
Brandon Sanderson who's done some he finished the Wheel of Time if I remember correctly,
like because the other guy Kaput, you know, if everyone likes Wheel of Time is sort of
similar. This is truly an epic that is like bigger than Lord of the Rings. But I think
as Eli as you said earlier to us, it's kind of like understandable Lord of the Rings a
little bit, didn't you? Yeah, it's like Lord of the Rings. But for for anybody, you don't
have to be super I don't know, autistic. You don't have to be an artist to like appreciate
it. And today I'm joined by Colin and Eli. Eli is familiar with the story, I think, probably
as much as I am. So this is very much a we're gonna make sure Colin is suffering and cooking
through this entire episode. I am here. Just a slight preface before we start. This one
is like in tone. It's not quite as dark as like, sort of the grim dark universe or the
one of fancy universe. But there is a genuine sense of like realism towards a lot of things
that happen within the Stormlight archive. And then I don't know if Eli will agree with
me on this as a general theme of like each character that this series focuses on genuinely
has like a mental health struggle that they go through a lot of the characters are not
like that. There's no one who is like perfectly written and in terms of like, they don't have
a you know, he was like, there's no Aragorn equivalent really in the story, which is quite
I guess it's Lord of the Rings, but it's a lot less like biblical and not as near nearly
as many like allegories or not as it's not quite like light and dark and stuff like that.
It's like, it's got the in it's got the in depth in the in depthness of Lord of the Rings,
but it's more modern and less metaphorical, I guess.
Yeah. But this for this far, so I don't want to hold in one's hand and make them wait for
the good stuff. So we're gonna get straight into it.
You've given me you've given me a map. So I'm already imagining the EU for mod for this
that I'm sure exists.
Well, funny enough, man, one here has played Crusader Kings three, there's a great I actually
using one of the maps, which will probably be on screen in a bit for the it's one of
the maps that someone's made for one the mods of it. And I cannot wait to play this mod
because this are generally I love Stormlight Archive so much and Brandon Sansom, by the
way, he's the opposite of George RR Martin. This guy is pumping out books and he has his
own website where he says on his website, I'm working on three books at the moment.
Here's a date in which it will be here. It's insane guy has to have like guy has to have
the tism. He has to have the tism, dude. He's the op like he is work ethic. This guy produces
great like he hasn't produced a dog. Yeah, like he mass produces things, but they're
actually good. It's crazy. So we're going to get into it. So this Stormlight Archive
is a fantasy universe and it takes place on the planet. Yes, you heard the right a planet
called Rochar. And you basically see it here on the map. I'll describe it for the audio
listeners Rochars like a super continent. There's not really many islands nations are
a few that do come up within the story, but most of the story takes place on this enormous
continent. And what's very kind of different about Rochard other fantasy universes. It
has something called high storms. Now from going from sit West to East across the entire
planet. There's a massive wall of storm that is raiders essentially across the land and
it hits on the very like Western point. And this high storm has completely shaped Rochard.
So endemic life on each side of the entire continent is very different because by the
time the high storm essentially rolls over the continent the storms of loses its power
and loses its strength. So creatures that live on the Western side are like very much
like shelled crustaceans. They're things that learn to hide from this massive like
lightning and white wind pelting storm. Like to illustrate to the people listening this
storm is like basically like a wooden house would just have would have no chance. So often
thing about constructs in a way so like they can survive these massive storms. So in the
most sort of Western point near I'll just iterate for the audio listeners. There are
some kingdoms that will go into a bit later and these ones are very nice. Like it's like
dry Baron at times the place like all life and things that grow there. They really have
to like to be able to survive a storm like all things like hiding caves or things that
you know you wouldn't catch many roaming animals. The idea of like horses as well in these regions
is quite rare because they actually have something called like Choles I believe it is and it's
like armored little like tortoisey weird reptilian things. But by the time you get to the other
side of the map of Rochard it's a lot more peaceful and there's much more things like
typically like what we'd see in our life. They grow like much like grasslands and flourishing
and vibrant areas. But essentially that these massive high storms are a huge part of like
what affects the entire world and even in a more different way that I'll have to get
to in a bit. And as I was just mentioning a little bit briefly earlier the high storms
very much affect human civilization. So all cities all places where people live Western
parts are designed to take that brunt of the high storm. So you wouldn't as you wouldn't
catch any wooden buildings or things that go down quickly. A lot of things are made
of like stone. People often have bunkers when high storms are rolling across and they do
actually have like a system of kind of judging when high storms do appear. So they they do
somewhat know that when a high storm is going to hit so people are like prepared and no
one sits outside and wears a high storm because it's like stones and rocks and lightning like
pelts like honestly you'd get stripped of your flesh if you were in the Western side
of it. And there are some like particularly a very important point. This is obviously
a fantasy world so there is some elements of magic here. Brandon Sanderson the author
is known for creating interesting magic systems which I'll go over briefly in this introduction
episode at the end. When these high storms roll across like across Roshar the high storm
itself produces something called storm light. Now storm light is basically just magic. I
won't lie. It's basically like infinite energy magic and people often collect them through
little gemstones and these things can be somewhat used to power and fuel like other things like
storm light itself is just like power and magic and a lot of civilizations often use
storm light like spheres as different lights. They're also actually their currency as well
and it's a very weird idea like their currency basically refills and it gets like you had
like a few pennies or just like you know you had like a one pence if it's like a UK thing.
Essentially when a high storm rolls over it gets refilled and it turns into like a pound
coin. Dude I wish that was how real life works. Yeah so your money like basically recharges
and the more valuable something is the more storm light it can hold and just a slight
tangent as well. Humans believe like there's some religions that say like this great figure
called the storm father is the one who creates the storms and he is responsible for the massive
high storms that roll across all of Rochar and another brief setting up point here there
are some very ancient cities in Rochar that are like possibly built thousands and thousands
of years ago possibly be by human hands it's unsure and these cities have been they're
so old and they're so well constructed they can survive high storms pretty much like without
any trouble and they are often like the capitals of many of the kingdoms that are like placed
over Rochar and this is where we get into the cool part which is some of the kingdoms.
Now if anyone here is like a fan of Warhammer fantasy there is some link to like a similarity
of like oh there's some historical like link like how the Empire Colony is basically the
Holy Roman Empire. Yeah the HRE. And like some of them like Tillya and the Astalia. Astalia.
With their equivalent again it's the Italy and Spain. Yeah some of them in Warhammer
fantasy if you're coming from a Warhammer perspective they are very much historically
inspired and that's very much true for the kingdom of Rochar but they do have a little
bit of their own flavor and they have a bit of like sort of different traditions that
sort of separate them a bit more from like a historical like it's not as like Warhammer
as a problem doesn't it where like it very much quickly rips off something and it's like
yeah we're not even going to acknowledge that whereas this one is like yeah it's that thing
but it's a bit more of a twist on it. Now we're going to start for the people who are
just audio listeners I'll go from west to east in terms of kingdom so this is the ones
who are closest to the high storms and pretty much like life there is difficult and it kind
of slowly gets easier as it gets more from like west to east. The first one we have to
talk about is the kingdom of Alath'kar. This one is essentially where most of the story
takes place and Alath'kar itself is I will go over a bit more later in terms like who
the people of that kingdom are but Alath'kar is very much like a dry not quite a desert
but like dry lands level like kingdom and Alath'kar is pretty much embodied by the
word of war. They very much I don't know what historical thing I could link it to but they
often are filled with high princes who essentially they constantly war within themselves over
the land. Alath'kar's people are very much just embodied by war they like fighting they're
very tall and a lot of the characters that are the main characters of the Stormlight
Archive are from Alath'kar. The kingdom to the left of Alath'kar if anyone can see on
the map is called Jakavet and Jakavet is a mess in all of the Stormlight Archive. Jakavet
is constantly embroiled in civil wars and problems and the land here is a little bit
more greener like there are some mountainous areas in it and just give people a scale this
is like they are huge these kingdoms and continent like Roshar itself is like a super continent
sized but the kingdom in itself imagine like it's only things like has anyone been on that
website like true size of and they go oh yeah yeah you grab like a country and then pull
it down you're like oh wow the UK is tiny like this is one of those things where like
oh these are quite big land masters and Jakavet is quite a big kingdom quite populous as well
a little bit greener but it's sort of it's Alath'kar is like the military might of Roshar
and Jakavet is like a sort of second into that like power there's a country to the north
called Hordaz or Hordazians they are the people from there I can't wait to talk about them
because they are so funny in the book because the book has got like a good sense of like
it's really hard to describe how well like character interactions happen in a Stormlight
Archive because some of the characters are just they just blurt out what they're thinking
like in real life it's not written as I was saying like the Lord of the Rings where it's
like oh such beautiful language you know oh Aragorn it's nothing like that it's very much
like yo you want to like build an army brother it's like oh god I literally had a bit of
tissue on my side like oh so embarrassing you know I mean just come off the loo or something
you know it's very much like they have a sense of humor and and seriousness as well but Hordaz
like a smaller nation towards the top there Hordaz is quite a bit drier.
They're kind of like our Australians I do have a bit about each people later but I just
want to like Hordaz is one I want to I'm very much looking forward to talking about there's
a few smaller nations on the sort of southern western point they're called the Frostlands
essentially no one really lives there they're like minor kingdoms that don't really come
up much in the story although there is one of the smaller ones called Cabrante which
is like a city they're like some city states in there there's actually an interesting part
where Cabrante itself is an entire city that hides in like a cliff that faces towards the
east so like the entire city is covered and it doesn't get hit by a high storm like that
but like just mention as well like all doors most doors face east because of the high storms
like that's how much it like affects the world yeah sorry I can't wait to watch the Hordaz
it's so funny but yeah a lot of these areas down under south they are very much like melting
pots a lot of people from other kingdoms will come to these areas they've they're not quite
like the Alethi they're not very war focused and there's a lot more like scholarship and
practices like that to the sort of central east part of it there is one here I have two
maps of Roshar this is one where it will appear on the map on screen called the Azish Empire
but this whole region because it's sort of almost cut off from the rest of it is called
the Makka Baki kingdoms there's like numerous small principalities that sort of look up or
they're they're sort of under the control of the Azish Empire the Azish Empire are sort of an
equivalent to the medieval like golden age of Islam I don't know if you maybe thought like that
Eli but there's like many links like their architecture and their way of life and would
you like to go ahead now you go ahead you I'll say what I thought of when you're done you may
finish explaining before I ruin everything yeah they have an extreme focus on like scholarships
and they have like just I will get into them like in a bit but the funny thing about the Azish
Empire is a fact that the way they choose their emperors is by people writing dissertations so
anyone can actually be the ages Empire as Emperor so long as you make like a good enough argument
as long as your college capstone paper is good enough you can be the Emperor and so long as I've
listened to these books it's all coming back to me now that is nice yes places which which nation
is net from because I remember that one is very neat which one is net against I like there's so
many characters the assassin Oh Seth oh no I'll get in so sorry he's a like don't step on stones
and stuff because stones are sacred yeah like funny enough the natural next nation was gonna
talk about here which is on the left western and sorry kingdoms it's not quite the Amir
island but this is one called Shinovah this is probably on the higher map for you guys in the
chat here the Shinovah is basically China essentially the yes it's very like it's very
like fertile it's peaceful land they despite war in Shinovah they despite it so much the point
that if you're a soldier you are disgusting and you're basically you're basically a slave and they
hold farmers in high regard so farmers own soldiers as slaves and in Shinovah there's like a thing
about you should always be honest like they don't like lies at all to the point where like if you
are overly honest they actually reward it which is quite strange there are some northern eastern
kingdoms called Rira and Eri they're kind of the equivalent of what is the Europeans in the land
of Roshar but they're very much not as integral to the story they're quite isolated they have like
some strange parts of their culture which is a bit more like witchcraft Ian sort of it more like
okay so I'm picturing like Europe basically from the fall of Rome to the like the Renaissance was
basically just not much outward contact with the world very often like you know Crusades happened
and then otherwise Europe was then very no one was really leaving Europe aside from some traders
and such around that time that's what I'm imagining to give a equivalent in terms of like warmer fantasy
they would be probably more of like the more northeastern empires provinces like it's not
terrible but like it's a bit like they're not as rich as the other lands and they very much have
Erikan isolationist sort of ideals to them and then the last one which is right old this is a
much smaller area but this is in the bottom right hand corner just between Adethkar and the frost
lands it's much easier to see on map too you guys can see that here just it's very hard to see it
this is it's almost like this round area that's in red and it's called the shattered plain I do
see where this is where a lot of the story of the storm our archive takes place because the
shattered plains is strange but I can't the shutter planes essentially is like an area filled
with intensely deep gorges I love for Shandy yeah it cut into the earth and it's inhabited by a
group called the Parshendi who we'll be getting into in this next section which is the races I
have one question one one horrible comment to make what is you might have seen in the in that
image I sent in what's uh what happened what's in that bottom region because it looks like a map of
former Yugoslavia with the 500 different micro nations yeah they're pretty much just principalities
like it's a very economically poor area like not much grows there the reason is called the frost
land is because it's basically just bitterly cold and yeah it's almost like it doesn't really come
up in terms of the story because no one really they're not one of the worthy kingdoms like the
Thalyn and Thalyn are Alath-Kal or Yakaved or the Azis the Azis and Alath-Kal probably like them
the wealthiest Azis the Azis Empire is probably the wealthiest kingdom but Alath-Kal is probably
like the strongest in terms of military might but what's the second comment my second thing is I saw
the Azis Empire and my mind immediately conjured up the horrid words of Azish Ansari
uh what does this mean what did he mean by the comedian Aziz Ansari oh I don't know why I made
that connection but I did god I didn't like that was out uh what's the show I don't know uh
Pops and Wreck oh yeah he was sometimes funny though I don't I don't know before you said
anything about it I saw on the map and that came to my mind so my apologies to everyone who
knows they look well they just going to the races next they look nothing like him so we're not
100% but I mean it wasn't an assumption based on anything you said about it I just saw Azish
and I was like Azish Ansari yeah that's funny oh man so next we're going to go quickly into the
races of um Groschar starting with the island nation right at the bottom which is the uh
Thalynars or the Thalyns they call themselves uh I've done a little small representation like
this is the best one I could find is an image of like different races here and the Thalyn is the
one that's like in the middle bottom right so the right hand side uh bottom area you know what I mean
now the Thalyns themselves like as a race they're very much a merchant and trader nation they are
obviously in islands they are like their main capital is like a massive port and the strange
thing about them is they possess really long eyebrows that are often like white and they sort
of curl them or like droop them behind their ears Thalyns aren't like the tallest but they are
some of them can be like pretty big obviously some of the other races on here will be much taller
but they pretty much are like wealth scholars they're about their own thing like Thalyns are
often seen traveling around a lot like they're often um people who will go to different nations
as traders so people will encounter Thalyns and they very much like their long eyebrows I don't
know why it's a thing but it's like there are a few Thalyn carrots that you meet in more later
books there are like a few in like some of the earlier ones the now the big the big group here
the big ones was like on the very if you're the audio listeners I will describe it for the visual
listeners there so right on the bottom middle here is the Alethi of Alethkar now the Alethi
I had to describe the Alethi they're very much like of tan skin and they are one of the members
of the so-called foreign nations which are foreigns are basically people who's kind of followed the
same like the same religion in a way like it basically be like the equivalent like these are
like all the christian nations you know and then all the ones like all follow like offshoots of it
or like their own sort of thing so the people who are of the foreign nations have stuff in common
and the Alethi are basically like as I said earlier they love they love a good war love a good cheeky
war they are of tan skin they have a lot of them mostly have a very dark hair don't not sure if
it's like to level like black but like very dark like brown hair and the interesting about the
the Alethi you'll love me even more because they have a caste system of course they do
why wouldn't they and in the Alethi culture their caste system is based off of your eye color
and they have like a ruling caste who are called the light eyes and then the lower castes are
called dark. I've seen this one before. Yeah have you guys ever seen that eye chart uh
yeah that's certain groups of people use to determine your worth? Yeah it's pretty much
but the they have a slight variation on it so light eyes doesn't just mean like it could be blue
like more of a gray tone to even greens and like light like yellows so it's not quite
what we think of like a european sense of it because the Alethi do not look european like at all
i don't know what the equivalent of them kind of would be like maybe like very very like southern
european to like northern african if you know i mean like they have like that kind of general
look to them they do have like quite sharp features and they have like very weird traditions
in alethcar so uh one of them this is also in some of the other varan kingdoms because
their religion also affects like their culture as it would they have a thing where basically
like the quirk is like people women have something called a safe hand which is like i think it's their
left hand if i remember eli it's the one where essentially showing like they always have their
left hand gloved and if they can only show like their ungloved left hand to um like and then like
close close members of their family it's considered like i think one character comments on it later
who's not from alethcar or anywhere near there he says like he doesn't know why men like staring
at women in the bar who have like their left hand out and they're like blushing and it's so bizarre
but um they essentially like most like when children get to a certain age and they're like
also young girls are coming to certain age they basically then put a glove on their hand and then
they call their safe hand they don't touch anything with their safe hand so most of the
things they do is like always right-handed and it would be like it would be a very like big thing if
a woman would like show you her hand ungloved for some reason but you can imagine why in like a
kind of culture like this it's very very gendered and to the point where it's almost to the extreme
where in alethcar and many of the other like kingdoms like yaka ved and even in like thalin
and i don't think not quite to the asish asish but some of the other ones like even like her
dad's like surrounding it they are very very gendered and they believe like certain roles
are only taken up by the men and certain things are only taken up by women so one of them is like
basically men are good for like doing military and might and the women are the only ones who
are allowed to sort of read and write which is very bizarre and it's the point where like basically
men if a man if a man knows how to read it's considered like oh that's like creepy and it's
like all feminine and in a way it's because it's in their like religion it's meant to form like
the men and women like two halves and when they join together it's the men join like you base like
the right arm is like the fist and then the women is like the administrative arm and like you know
the brains behind it maybe there are more metaphors in this than i thought i think brian is mormon
actually and i'm pretty sure mistborn is has a lot of influence from that but i'm not entirely
right because a lot of the even when they have that background a lot of the characters that are
within it do often like reject this sort of like they play around these sort of roles and they very
much are like constraining it to the boundaries of these obviously like stupid ideas like even
other characters that point out like this is so dumb um there is like cool world building though
it is cool world building there's a there's a slight say i wouldn't call it stupid
no isn't like it's it's stupid in the point like they are the characters comment from other
different nations like how they view it as like stupid yeah which is but to the like alethi like
it's normal to them yeah they also just there's a slight fun fact to them which is uh not just
for them but other foreign nations which is there is another formal communication which is like
basically runes and men you can it's almost like kanji uh for like japanese it's very much you can
interpret the word from it and a lot of people that there's like a bit of like a debate on like
is runes like actually like writing and if you know because obviously men can often understand
what a rune means so it's like oh you know maybe he understands too much about runes he's kind of
a bit effeminate very kind of funky little part there uh now to the veiden people who are of the
nation of yakov ed which is the one which is uh just on the top of the left hand side of alethkar
remember alethkar was on the right on the western edge of roshah the akavadians are essentially
uh a bit more of a european nation uh compared to the uh alethi they have paler skin most of them
have like black hair some of them do actually have red hair which is one of the characters who's like
one of the main people in the stormlight archive and there's an interesting about red hair in it
which i will get to later which is the one the other groups which like red hair basically descends
like a very specific group in the world and i'll get to that in a second yeah the veiden obviously
are quite similar like they have these their language is similar enough to the alethi and
some of the other surrounding nations that they can kind of understand each other but it's still
a bit different because a lot of these nations have been like set in stone for like a very long time
if anyone said like i think the quote is to even enter into yaka bed land it's almost built like a
fortress because there's so many like tall mountains and but then like surrounded by dense
dense forests in some areas which is very very very different from um alethi the natan people
which are that there's another group people who like they're this one like hasn't come up too much
in my reading of the stormlight archive but there's one called the natan which are they're the ones
who are in like a smaller nation called new natan which they basically have like a faint bluish skin
not really much is known about them but now onto my favorite my absolute chads my boys there's a
smaller smaller semi nation that lies within the yaka bed still which is called the horn eater
ever cause them the horn eaters but they call themselves the unka lucky if elie remembers these
people uh rock if you know the character basically the unka lucky people are like really tall like
gingers most of them like tall gingers and they're called horn eaters because they are they're free
suck a little bit more they kind of like they are humans kind of there's a there's a very like
opposite to them where like they're often a bit taller more muscly they speak in like a very strange
way like because their language just does not translate into like alethi or yaka bedian very
well and they have like really really strong teeth and they often eat like animal horns and shells
and claws they like put it in their soups there's a funny bit in some of the stories where like
some of the characters are eating like the soup and it's like literally there's like horns in it
and he's like it's horn eater soup it's good for you i promise you and it does taste really good
they're all really good cooks and they have very very strange traditions in the fact that they
have like a system of like they have loads of children the unka lucky and they're like mountain
is home and like some of them if they're like high up on the like the first born or like even
to the third born brother some of them are like oh you're too valuable you can't like the younger
brothers are allowed to fight the other brothers are not allowed to fight and some of them have to
be like cooks or something like that they're very different like very defensive they live in like a
sacred land they're very much in tune with the world but they sometimes are like they they're
technically part of yaka bed but they don't really see themselves as part of it but they sometimes
like will like send people to their cell phone like they're like i guess like they're like sophisticated
i don't know they're like orcs but they're smart and like religious and sophisticated maybe yeah
it would it would be like the smartest orc as a human yeah not like 40k orcs just like like
fantasy orcs i means yeah they're pretty uh like whenever like there's a cat interaction with them
it's always like really enjoyable just because they're so funny because people don't know how
to interact with them but they are one is very important they are very tall and people who live
in yaka bed if they have like red hair they often say like oh you probably have like horn eater or
unka lucky ancestry another race is the from the land of shin of art which is like right on the
western edge and they are the shin race which is they're essentially like the world's equivalent
of what are like asian people but i don't know how to put this in a nice way but they're like
i don't know how to put this in a nice way but they kind of like animate up if you know what i mean
like they very much have like they're shortened down people and their eyes are like the size like
anime eyes i don't know how like colin feels about that did you i'm picturing did you guys see the
movie uh like what is it like elita battle angel or whatever it was yeah that's there's with me a
movie by the way really yeah i didn't see it i have to admit i just saw the trailers like damn
she got big eyes wasn't anything special but it was kind of fun movie was cool nothing wrong with
being sold seven out of ten yeah they the people of shin are like as a data they're quite peaceful
they are quite short as well like someone that they know talk you just like they are they are not
six foot there are no six foot kings they are the five eleven nation um they very much they like as
you like i mentioned earlier they have a quirk where they think walking on stone is like the
equivalent to like a really grand scene yeah they can't walk on stone and if you walk on stone
yeah they they pretty much like oh that's disgusting can't believe you step on stone
huh yeah they they have a they they just hate stone they call them stone walkers people who
live in like the uh they don't they don't hate stones the stones are too sacred to step on i
thought isn't that what it is yeah so like people who live in the east are stone walkers to them and
then they're like are great simmers so if there were dwarves they would just hate them with a
passion i'm assuming yeah yeah they all live in like above ground you know like fertile farmland
so they're they're shing up very much they're quite isolated they even like they're as you see
from the map on they're very much like cut off from the rest of roshar and anytime people ever
go in is like as traders most time people don't even desire to fight wars over them because they're
just like well they don't even want to fight back it's just a bit you feel a bit bad almost
you won't later because there are some interesting characters of them uh the next ones are the
maki baki people which are the asian empire and those smaller nations that fall underneath them
the maki the maka baki are very much like they're they're the darkest skin of all of the
nations i don't know if you can still see the equivalent on the image i have put up there
they they're very much a sort of i would say central like west african like there's probably
the equivalent in our real world uh yeah they pretty much have dark hair dark skin they don't
they don't put as much focus onto the light eye dark eye system because again like for them like
they've even had like emperors and much of their admin like their huge administrative arm is filled
with people who are just basically the brightest of them so it doesn't it doesn't really matter
where they come from but obviously like it helps you get a massive head start if your education
is probably paid for by someone wealthy so you know obviously they still have a ruling elite in
in some regards but basically the dumb ones just don't get a chance there are some other
smaller races that do appear um but i think some of them might have to skip because they don't
really come up there is a weird interesting one which is called the seer amiens which are like a
non-human one and they are like these they're slightly human but they have like white blue skin
and they said that their shadows point the wrong way no explanation for why that happens uh they
can also change their bodies that their boys like adapt and they basically like tattoos appear on
their bodies and what they want to remember remember something and they also have no sense
of smell like you can't smell them don't know why anyone thought to smell them but like that's a
cool thanks thanks brandon cheers cheers brandon um the now there's some cool ones here which are
i'm gonna start with the parshman first the parshman are a humanoid race of like deep and
dark marbled skin often in shades of black gray uh orange and red and they're essentially like
a slave race that they are everywhere on roshar and the strange thing about parshman is that
they're very dull isn't like they don't seem like they're quite all there and they are extremely
like compliant they're essentially like the most perfect servitors but yeah they don't but they're
born like that they don't have like a it's almost their mind is not fully there and when the people
talk to them they can you can have a conversation with parshman but they it wouldn't have any depth
it's a puddle there's no depth to it um and they're very much are just they're like they're
actually worth quite a lot because they're valuable slaves and they are literally everywhere in every
single kingdom all over roshar because it's been like that for thousands of years but the next ones
this is probably elias cool like favorite here is cause the parshad definitely they're they're
they're an eli faction they're my favorite group and this is a proud they call themselves the proud
non-human race and they live in the shattered plane planes and they are sort of like a tribalistic
warrior culture and they very much look exactly like the parshman but a lot of them are like
there's some slight differences they still have the same marbled like red white or like black skin
they have like little patterns to them but a lot of them are very different in appearance compared
to the parshman they are said to like basically when they talk they are very much like a fully
sentient creature and they have a weird way like speaking with like they sing in rhythms it's called
so like the way like we feel emotions they very much can express them in terms of like different
like almost like vibrations and melodies in their words so if someone's being like annoying to you
you'd be like oh it's so like you'd say in your tone whereas they will like sing it in a sort of
strange way so they sing their emotions like most of the time and it's quite like when characters
like having conversations with parshendi they often find it quite strange because they're like
it's like hello how are you like they're all like singing the entire time they're kind of
no they're like aren't they like kind of constantly emitting uh like a like a hum of some sort yeah
like a hum they're like it's like they they're very much implied like in tune with the world itself
yeah and things like affect them and change them they also they also can sing in a way that changes
their physical form so some of them so compared to a lot of the parshman that we see they look like a
regular human the parshendi there is actually a art piece i put in the chat so a little bit of a way
down uh towards sort of middle and this basically the parshendi are able to sing and then they assume
different like physical forms so this they have like one called mating form and one of them is
like scholar form and they have one most of the time you see him is called war form and they
basically grow from like their own bone like a chitinous outer armor that's attached to their
own skin and they're very much like if you can see the artwork uh there boys in like i think it's in
the middle of the collection i'll put on the screen for the uh listeners here they very much just like
they most of the time you see parshendi they are in uh war form and they have like a cool thing
like when they fight they don't fight like you know how like a phalanx like is colin and like
you know they're all tightly packed and like a tiny back and they basically work at like one big group
uh so like you know obviously no one here knows i hear like they like massive just
square blocks of men all working together um parshendi do not do that they actually often fight
and they often live and work in pairs they they literally will fight in long lines of just like
duos and it's often implied some of them like male some of them are like the female you basically
you basically fight with your wife right like that's yeah mostly you basically like you as a
company you're the parsh and they are taller and stronger than humans but there's there's
something like their disadvantage is the fact they don't necessarily fight like as cohesively
but when they obviously taking on a parshendi is like a big like tall tale because like ridiculously
strong um but yeah they they essentially can transform their body to adapt to what they need
to do so some of them like well so they always go build a new home today we're going to take
on work form or like you know oh we need to you know we want to have more children we'll take on
mate form or something like that so yeah and then it's a vibe like yeah it's this way it may mate
form is like yeah it's like they're softer and they're dull and stuff and like you don't want
to be in mate form if you're doing anything else other than mating fucking yeah and they don't
this is i guess this is for later in the video but they have no shards that's one of their is that
one of their things they have no shard blades or is that no they do they well i'll have to go into
what that is in actually that's coming up right uh next but a while just to finish on the uh parshendi
themselves there's a funny part i do remember one of the books where like one of the people like her
she transforms into like warrior form and her partner's still in mate form and she's like he's
literally like sitting there in the corner being horny the entire time and she's like oh my god it's
exhausting and when they interact with humans they literally they're almost the parshendi have not
interacted with parshman or humans for a long time and when they interact with humans they're like oh
my god you're telling me humans are in war form mate form and work form the entire time so they
don't even see the ball yeah the idea like you couldn't switch off like a part of your brain is
completely strange to them and now is the actual more fun part which is the world building of
rochar this is stuff like colin you will desperately need to understand what's going on going on
so as we say this is like the current map of rochar and there are some things that like fill
in the gaps of like the world building which is a big one is called the spren it's a very unique
thing to like it's not seen in maybe other fancies as much but spren are essentially
i would describe like fairies almost if it's like that's like the closest thing i could describe
them to and they essentially represent things from elements to even to concepts and they're
just like darting little creatures like that somewhat look like magic and but so a lot of
the time like for example there's something called like wind spren and you sometimes in like the
world of rochar people will see the spren like these little creatures that will interact and
like fly in the air it's like oh it's like a little sort of wind fairy but then there are things where
spren appear where emotions are strong so say if someone absolutely i don't even know if this is
even like what this really means but if someone blew up the bathroom in a dave and busters or
something they would have oh no they would sprout something called like shame spren so shit so if
you just say like you this like really embarrassing sometimes shame spren will like appear next to you
and people can see it and they're like no you're ashamed so like these truly these guys like truly
like you know and they are showing receipts and they're all like they're all unique and like appear
in different ways and stuff and look different and very cool this world sounds like hell now
no it's not it's not too i mean there's not like it's like if you're really angry a little red
wisps might pop up or like stuff like that yeah it's very much like a it's like a physical
indicator of certain things and then the world itself so like some examples like i said like
wind and shame spren there's one called like rot spren so people like say soldiers are injured in
battle they're like a little rot spren would appear near the wound and that's when people are
like oh i know it's like bad so there are like some kind of indicators there's like glory spren
which i pay like gold lights above people's head and then they're like lying spren which is like
some of the more they're like more complex spren and um really wacky big ones and nobody
understands type of thing too right you can't really like talk to them they kind of like
sometimes they do like they've been described like they do take on form and shape at this point in
the story but but people they don't like interact with people people just like see it and it's been
around for like the entire time so people just it's like background like it wouldn't shock someone
if they saw a spren they just like oh it's a spren like seeing like a bird or like you know
butterfly or something like that and the next cool part which i so glad i get to get to uh there's a
visual uh representative of this one here somewhere in the middle it's called a shard blade now this
is the stuff that makes um the stormlight archive kind of go hard shard blades are massive but
lightweight ancient weapons that can literally cut through anything except another shard or
other shard things they are incredibly valuable incredibly rare and shard blades they're not like
a traditional saw where like they'd like sit in a sheath or anything like that they pretty much
temporarily bind to your soul and only release when you willingly release the blade or you
basically die and then the blade sort of like pops out and they can sort of like be they can evaporate
and then appear like some characters have ones like that appear as like in mist some of them appear
like as like it like shapes like water out of their hands some of them are fire and when you are cut
by a like by shard blades are like really comically large like if you see some of the artworks i put
here colin like some of the like some characters like holding uh shard blades they are really big
but they are not heavy like at all like when characters like who pick them up they describe
them as like this like half the weight of like a normal blade even though it hits hard
they're they're designed to be wielded by anime protagonists with a sword five times the size of
their body pretty much they um but the thing is shard blades like when you're like when your body
is cut by a shard blade essentially the limb and like all the surrounding tissue turns black and
like your eyes like fizzle out like it somehow destroys your very being and it just goes right
through you it's not like say it doesn't like savor your arm or anything yeah it lets you like
pretty much like a ghost blade almost um but the thing is shard blades are so incredibly rare
that they can elevate your social status so when someone who say like a dark eyes in alice car
and they acquire a shard blade it basically puts them up to like oh you're basically like a noble
now your eyes turn to light don't they yeah your eyes do turn like a lighter color as well due to
the fact like i mentioned earlier like storm light somehow interacts with the weapon respawn that
comes from more like the big high storm i said at the beginning um shard blades are very like some
of the designs are really really cool and most kingdoms have like a set a few sets like alice
car has quite a lot of shard blades but when i say a lot i mean like i think they have like 20
in like the massive kingdom and uh some of them like some of them are used by like very powerful
noble sometimes the noble has like a champion who uses the shard blade like because they're so
they're very much like oh like one shard bearer on the battlefield is worth more than like a thousand
men like a shard blade is worth like an entire fife pretty much it's worth it yeah more than a
city like um and then there's something that does pair with it which is called shard plate which is
equally rare i think there's a few more shard plates than there are shard blades but shard
plate is pretty much what you think it is it's sort of a similar construction to the magnificence of
shard blades they're very much described like as almost like a ceramic like material rather than
you know like modern body armor like shatters if it's hit rather than like snaps or like bends or
anything like that some of them like you know like the big plates they put in front of um like modern
i obviously paired with kevlar and things like that and shard plate is big like some if you see
some of like the artwork depictions here like some of the people are wearing uh shard plate it's a
very bulky armor set but weirdly enough it does like when you put it on it does conform to your
own shape it's very much powered by storm light and shard plate can like break off in sections so
when people like fighting with other even just shard blades it kind of like bounces off it and
then it like it breaks it it's the only thing that can actually stop a shard blade if you get
enough people and you can swarm someone in shard plate you could possibly like get them out of it
but again it's like people wearing shard plate is very much like the human tank and like space
marine power armor against yeah it's sticks and stones although different to shard blades it's
incredibly heavy shard plate and the only thing that makes it like people able to use it is the
fact like it's powered by storm lights that people use like certain gems in it and that gives it like
basically like they give it an electrical circuit and pretty much one shot like person with a shard
plate and a shard um blade like most people just run because it is very much the space marine like
you are very much walking death on any field and then most people wait they don't risk their
like a lot of times when like kingdoms are fighting between themselves they'll like the
the armies will start fighting and then they'll be like okay now the shard bearers like appear and
then the shard bearers just go to battle because they basically the most battles are one-off if the
shard bearers dead or not which is incredibly rare and obviously people there's like big stories
about people winning shard blades and shard plate and things like that the just like what do you do
feel i don't know if they some of them do have names for shard blades but i don't think i have a
list in here but they are a very cool like i guess not like gimmick but like a mechanical like the
world in terms of like how much power is very much in the idea of like is it you know what's that
thing is it in game of thrones they said like who's the most powerful person in the room is it the
priest the king or the um or like the merchant or something like that and then so basically the most
powerful person is the person wielding the sword and the one where he believes where the power is
and like there's a big analogy about shard bearers the next sort of world building part here is
something called the heralds uh let me know colin if this is like already too much because there's
quite a lot coming i'm sort of keeping track i'm sort of staying along yeah so you should definitely
listen or read to these books if you get the chance there's like an amazing audio drama i know that
yeah it's long but it's very it's worth it it's very much worth it and just like a last bit on
like shard plate and shard bearers there are quite a few dotted throughout kingdoms but it's like
alif khar being the strongest has the most amount and often kingdoms will like trade things for
shard plate and shard bearers and most it's kind of like a space bring thing like when most people
just won't like in their lifetime see a shard bearer so when they do like see them they're very
much like oh my god so it's they're pretty uh they're pretty special and the most important thing
now is to about the heralds which is uh as we go back so what we're looking at now is like the
modern map of roshar and most of this story it kind of takes place with the beginning with the
heralds which are essentially like it set thousands of years ago and this is the point where it
explains like this this is like the beginning of what is like recorded history for roshar the
heralds are essentially something first about it is called the desolation that's a bit more important
but the heralds and the desolations are linked the desolation is basically the apocalypse and
throughout roshar's history they basically over thousands of years they keep having like apocalypse
level events where this great enemy called the quote void bringers basically wipe out most of
the kingdom so the current kingdoms that you're looking at on the roshar map are not really that
old but and they have as i said earlier they've been like some cities which are like clearly made
in a different age it's very much the same thing you know in like a moorhammer way like they had
the age of strife and like sort of things collapse they basically have that but they have it like
three or four times every like thousand years i think and the desolate yeah so they it's a lot
of it is lost to history like what really happens during desolations because it hasn't been one for
quite a while at the start of the books this great enemy called the void bringers essentially wipe
out most of human civilization until this group called the heralds which i think basically is like
the avengers they're like 10 humans that appear during the desolations and they mostly rally
humanity against what the void bringers and they fight back and they most like every time so far
they've managed to beat a desolation how many desolations there has been we really do not know
essentially every single time it's happened though it's implied like humanity got white it just did
worse and worse like more of like you know like literally our golden age just disappeared at some
point and just vanished just things suck now it's just so old i mean it's like uh i know like in
warhammer it was like always like the distant past i think it is like it's an equivalent like
four or five thousand years like that's how far back it goes and these 10 like humans the heralds
are very much they are the center of what is a voron church as i mentioned earlier earlier sorry
they are pretty much worshiped in most countries at some point the heralds themselves are just 10
human beings there are like things like five men five women i was list off their names very quickly
but they're not they are very like when the book opens you start on the heralds at one of the
desolations so just um like they are very much a recurring thing that happens in the story and
the more you learn about what happens to them it reveals more about what the characters are like
the main story are going to be facing and doing so the heralds are yezerin nalan chanarach again
this is like laming off of like any that warhammer thing it's like yeah that's the character name for
sure uh yedel paliyah shalash bata kalak talanel and ishar and the very much like in the voron
church but actually in real life the heralds represent an aspect of human humanity and civilization
so some of like them are aslo yezerin was aspects of war like also yezerin is not war sorry but
the they have ideas such as like war justice piety love like they embody those things not just in
the sense like they are those things but like each of the 10 heralds became a herald because
of something within them that was like particularly strongly linked to it so the herald of war was
obviously very war like the herald of justice had a strong sense of justice and what makes the herald
so special is they have access to the power called surge bindings which i don't know why it gets me
so hype whenever i hear about surge bindings because surge binding is essentially like the magic of
uh the stormlight archive and it essentially allows a person to draw in stormlight if you
remember i mentioned that earlier it's like the sort of the magic that washes over roshar kite
constantly through like the massive storms and it essentially increases your strength your speed
and your healing and they even have this power called lashing that we'll get into just a little
bit more but lashing essentially is when they use stormlight to invert gravity and they can
and they can do it on themselves and they can also do it to objects as well and they can use it they
do it using stormlight so say if you wanted to run up like the wall you just in you basically take
in some stormlight and you basically lash yourself so you basically like gravity shifts you and so
you basically turn you can jump on walls and stuff so people get pretty hype so the even the most
extreme level where like some people are able to like fly yeah like that level of like it gets
some people would like have there's a full-on i can't spoil it too much but like there's a fight
scene that happens in the sky at one point in the middle of a storm and it gets like crazy just
because the amount of like power surging through them um but there are surge firing doesn't just
end there though and even though the heralds are known for it and they use these powers they
use these powers like fight off the desolations and these void bringers there are variations to
surge binding powers which i'll go into now uh there's any questions that we've gone so far
like because i'm obviously i'm getting a lot of information uh into your head at the moment um
is it spoilers to say uh like what happens to the heralds in between desolations that's yeah i
kind of i won't finish off at some part of that but i was gonna just like there's been there's a
bit of context about soish bindings out of i guess it's more of a general setting curiosity question
is there uh i know you like uh aleth kar uh they they uh they're like a very warlike culture is
there frequently like massive engagements between all these people and all this shit or is it yeah
i mean there's constant like war between the aleth kar states and stuff the alethi often fight
between themselves the herdazians and i was gonna mention it earlier something cool i liked about
the herdazians um the i missed this section right how didn't it as well yeah the the people who live
in herdazia uh they have the best sense of humor like they are like seem like dark skinned and they
have like something like curly hair and other features like a bit more like the asia slightly
the herdazians have like a weird sense of like a sort of like a trickster element to their culture
where like things they often like to sweat like some of them do like to swindle people and it's
like funny ones like their justice is and their laws are written in a way in which like someone
could miss into like i think one of them was i wish for a trial by combat and he goes like sure
but they choose like a really like oiled up sweaty hippo so they're like a funny sense of like
talking when people like when herdazians are like like near people people often groan because
they're like oh my god i was gonna try to swim them out my money or you know i mean and they
often have like a there's one character who's herdazian and this guy like honestly like herdazians
are very much like just like always on your case they are as deep as light as that's a thing
what's that sorry they refer to the to everyone as cousins yeah like they if they see another
herdazian he's immediately your cousin you've known him for 20 years like he's close family
very much like look out for the like each other and they pretty much like the funny thing about
a lot of times in the story people are like wait why is it more of you like where did you come from
they're like what do you mean he's my cousin like they constantly keep popping up but they are i
have a particular love of herdazians there's a funny part where like there's a certain king
in this one of the stories who's like accidentally finds himself in a herdazian house and like he
thinks he's the king but the herdazian mother is the is the queen of that house she's like you're
gonna eat your soup and she just smacks him on the head and stuff like that because like herdazians
don't take you from anybody so sorry finishing off with surge binding powers which is a group
called then this is probably one more important things which is like an offshoot of the heralds
as i mentioned earlier which is called the knight's radiant this is an order that was founded after and
during some of the ancient desolations and essentially their ranks are filled with people
who are surge binders these people who are from all over roshar and they were said to fight in this
like great they were housed in this great fortress called urethiru which is like kind of lost at the
like beginning of the story like that it's like this ancient fortress which is like made of stone
which is like completely resistant to any high storm it's like it's so high up it's above the
storms it's crazy and the knight's radiant were composed of 10 orders that essentially mimic
they weren't made by the heralds but they were inspired by the heralds and what the heralds
embodied so like there's some there's a slight spoiler here but it's very much obvious by the
end of the first book which is what makes surge binding possible is when a spren actually links
with a person so a spren can become more sentient and then it will like when you essentially join
with it and it like accepts you that allows you to draw in stormlight and each of the different
knight's radiance are able to sort of you know they basically join with a spren and it allows
them to do all the cool things like you know surge binding and you know lashings and they fight and
they often would go and fight the void bringers during desolations it does specialize a little
bit their powers they're not just like oh it's just a boost and that's it but to explain how
this happens as well like it's not quite like like how does one like join with a spren it's
actually entirely based off like based off of who you are as a person so like spren won't join to
you if you are not of the right temperament that's why like the heralds i said embody such
uh like a specific ideal it's because it's those spren are only able to join with people who like
feel that calling within them and the way that the knight's radiance are like able to enact their
power is they have to speak something called the ideals we're not i'm not entirely sure why it's
done in some like it's it's a verbal form but it's the only actual way to essentially enact surge
binding and to draw in stormlight and the way they do that is they so the first ideal which is
true for all of the radiance of all the different orders they have to say these words which is life
before death strength before weakness journey before destination this is the first ideal and
they must all do it to be able to start drawing in stormlight and be or they'll be able to bond
it with a spren and that allows them to like gain access to their powers the next ideals so they can
go up to five ideals like each like a different sort of um calling and each of them specializes
depending on who you are and which sort of order you belong to so wind runners they're often ones
who are like quite closely linked to wind spren they very much their power comes from their sense
of like just like doing the right thing and being honorable so the wind runners themselves were often
like the frontline combatants they very much like have good access to like lashing and then
they would be often be the ones like flying around so like when desolations were happening
they would like be groups of like radiance like flying like literally like like was like this like
uh groups like jets like just flying over battlefields but like yeah we're coming boys
like we're going where are we dropping sort of thing and other examples like orders are ones
are ones who are called skybreakers who they are like similar to the herald of justice where in
their heart they are obsessed with doing the right thing and so they grant them they haven't gone
quite as far in the books with some of their unique powers but they essentially have things that adapt
to that they're ones called light weavers who there are people who are obsessed with the truth
and lies and so they're able to create illusions with stormlight there's one called bombsmiths who
essentially say they do what they say on the tin they seem to create bombs and they wish to forge
o's with people like o's themselves have a power in the world and so they gain more strength and
power when they form connections with people and also important thing to remember all night's
radiant possessed a shard and so a shard plate and a shard blade they were pretty much like a
much like a literally like an elite they were essentially a space marine chapter who lived on
rochar for like many many many hundreds of years on throughout rochars older history
and that's kind of this like this is all like the background context of it like it sounds like this
is like oh you need all this before you can like when you go through the book it it reveals all
this stuff so slowly like you don't feel like loss any point obviously it's quite a lot in one go now
but this is i'm going to start that's like kind of the background info and i'm going to go on to
the context you for the first book which is way of kings and then just some like a basic
rendition of like the characters you're going to start following obviously if we do more episodes
of this uh fireside we'll go into all those characters because some of them are so well
written and it's so enjoyable um i'm just gonna go into like a slight uh bit of context for the
uh story yeah could i have two questions about like those i the ideals and yeah sure so pretty
quick um i guess one is that so like since it's like based on personality as well like let's say
there's some just i met he like he's just the biggest dickhead on the planet he can't force
his way and like i like that i just hype like idea of kindness or anything like that like he can't
get power from that he can't fake it basically like you you can't bs your way into it the spren
that bonds with you if you start to fall away from your ideal and your behavior then you lose
the connections and you actually lose the power so if you were a like a member of like you know you
had to be a skybreaker and you're obsessed with justice if you knowingly acted unjust you would
lose your powers uh and is there a way to like force it basically like let's say you have the
can you like capture it or something like bind it to you so like even if you fall away it's like no
you're stuck with me little spren i don't think so no it's like dnd paladin pretty much yeah the
power very much is entitled like what it certainly like it can be what you believe so if someone's
form of justice is not someone else's it doesn't matter so long as the person is in control they
believe it's just you have to have the conviction gosh yeah you have to but they don't just like
oh they don't give it to like us it doesn't bond with like a psychopath who thinks he's doing the
right thing yeah it's very much like the spren choose the person who is like the right person
for it rather than and and there are examples like some people do lose their powers in this series
at some point just because they very much um lose like their strength or their will so there's some
wiggle room like of what like constitutes like justice for to use that example but you can't
like there's arabis isn't rocking up with the justice spren yeah like arabis wouldn't get no
matter how what he thinks no he wouldn't i mean there are some things like i could go into uh
there's an offshoot of spren but that's like a thing for another episode because it's just too big
yeah um but very much like spren pretty it's like a it's almost like a foolproof way of like having
the power be in the right hands if you know i mean because the spren just once you are like
no longer fulfilling the ideal they basically go like ah we're out see a fan i'm out but they
basically just disappear and or she's fair they can they can die if you are too if you try and
force it they actually the spren dies ah well there you go and uh my other little question is
have there been anything like a mute person like you said they have to speak it so like is like if
you're mute is it just like sorry champ you are perfect in all ways but uh you can't talk so you
can't call that power forth i don't know is that ever been addressed is that a curiosity no but i
assume like you can maybe sign it do you feel like there's also like a thing where sucking in
stormlight also heals you so people who have had injuries like they permanent like someone's able to
like regrow a limb like it's possible to do that like stormlight is like the ultimate healer so if
you were obviously mute if you're mute by choice it probably would it would it would find another
way like it wouldn't it would know you have to like say it with your heart in a way not like
speaking the words is part of verbalizing the truth of it you know it's life before death strength
before weakness journey for destination you have to believe that in order to the strange part as
well like when the spren chooses you as well you feel the words like come from your soul like a
lot of them they don't they don't tell you as a surge binder what the ideals are you you discover
them by following like you know falling deeper into the your unique path so you cannot be told
what the um you but only the first ideal is simply told to most of the nice radiant or like surge
binders the other ones you have to discover for yourself because you're feeling your like soul
is any any other smaller questions it's quite there's a lot of like background stuff but this
is like i'm just gonna start the recap of like this is where the series starts and like sets you
up like properly like this is the beginning of the book i uh i think i'm ready to hear it also so
the beginning again i won't go in too deep just in case people want to like go in further for
themselves or again like we might do a future episode based off of each character because
each book of each book is essentially like a trilogy in itself so it's they're very long but
you do follow the point of view of many like interesting characters and they're also much
smaller side characters but the series essentially starts with the first scene is with the heralds
and it's right after a desolation has happened and the heralds themselves are looking to each other
and they essentially look each other in the eye and they're completely like broken as human beings
they don't know how many desolations they fought they essentially have like the the age they're
from is like no longer exists and they notice that only one of their rank is missing and when the
heralds are looking through each other they all see all embody different things but they all agree
the nine who are still here but they just can't do it again they cannot go back and obviously what
that really means is something you have to discover way later and there are nine swords the artwork i've
put um in the chat for you guys and i'll put on the screen for the rest of them there are nine
swords that are like put in a circle and they look very much like shard blades and they are essentially
a rejection of what their duty is and from this point on the story complex a completely different
shift slightly later in the timeline this is this is supposedly set quite at a time we don't even
remember possibly a thousand two thousand years ago we're not really sure and what happens possibly
even centuries or decades we're not sure later the night's radiant by the time of the start the first
book the first book called way of kings there's an event called the recreants the night's radiant so
300 nights in their shard blade and shard plates stand before an unnamed city's walls the guards
are all looking out at them like they're very like what's going on why are the nights radiant here
and the night's radiant take off their shard plates and disband their blade and sever their
connection to them and women of every women men of every color creed and everything they essentially
leave them there and it's like a blood bath as people go over to clamber to them and the night's
radiant disband and they're basically forever on the night's radiant the name night's radiant is
considered like a like a slugger stain it's like oh they abandoned their duty to the world and they
have basically those shards i mentioned earlier the shards and shard plate the ones that like
spread over multiple different kingdoms that's where they all came from this like shattering of
the night's radiant and essentially over the next few centuries those blades and those plates will
be fought over in massive blood baths until they settled into the current kingdoms of the start of
the way of kings alice car itself has been it was once united in its previous history
only once and then very briefly like disbanded very much like an alyzander the great sort of thing
and it is once again for the first time in many many centuries it is united under what a king
who unites all the different high princes of the very like all the different lands are the people
who are the people who are the alethi by a king called gavilar and his brother called high prince
dalinar dalinar and gavilar are very important to the books but particularly dalinar who's one of
the pov characters eventually king gavilar and his brother dalinar discover to the south this area
this area called the shattered plains and as i said earlier the shattered plains are quite
close to the high storms and the shattered plains itself is incredibly like i said earlier like they
have like filled with crevasses and deep chasms that are like super super deep to the point where
like the light almost doesn't touch and it's like an entire region filled with them and to actually
cross over different chasms people have to build things like bridges and ladders and the idea of
being bridges as well bridges are very important to anything that happens on the shattered plains
and that will come up a lot later if elai knows what i'm talking about bridge four bridge four
um bridge four bridge four is like shark bake like that quick reset with uh with our chest
the king gavilar and prince dalinar so high prince dalinar they discover the parshendi people which
are the ones that like similar to like the parshman earlier and they but they look like the war form
they're like filled like they're like chitinous like bone growths over their head their shoulders
and their chests they're very different they obviously speak in a very very different way
a very like interesting time for um the alethi who have been at this point they've been fighting like
border wars with like yaka bed like the region to their left and the hadassians who the little silly
goose hadassians have been testing the uh the border because why not because there's a king might
also be any good lovely hadassians um and at the time the discovery the parshendi which is to the
south of alethkar which is like almost like a new like right on their border but they've never quite
ventured in there because it's near like the frost land which is again like nobody thinks of anything
there there is a treaty to be signed between these like two nations alethkar is much larger
and bigger than the shattered plains but there are lots of parshendi who live here and they
essentially uh the parshendi have a group that travel up to the palace at the city called kolonar
which is the capital of um alethkar and is very much like one of those older cities as i mentioned
there like one like it's a city that's been around for a very long time probably before
the alethi were even there and this is when this fateful night happens when an assassin in white
shows up this assassin is a short figure filled with like with flowing rose there's probably an
artistic rendition i put in the chat down here and he starts to walk on the walls of the palace he
starts all of the sphere lanterns that like surround it like and mostly use like the light
sources in most of like kolonar they start to drain as he goes near them and he's like slightly
glowing as he is essentially starts carving up loads of guards and the assassin is also wielding
a shard blade and there are very few of those obviously in the world eventually the assassin
manages to chase king gavilar all the way up into this like outside area where the king who has his
own shard blade is like fighting against him in his own shard plate but eventually the assassin
moves in such a way like no one has seen surge binding for a very very long time and so they
don't even know what's happening and the assassin manages to kill the king so king the the book
opens with king gavilar king of alethi the war nation being assassinated but with his dying breath
gavilar asks the assassin to tell his brother something important and for some reason the
assassin agrees and he writes a message in king gavilar's blood and it's a quote from a book
called the way of kings and obviously remember when they just got just a side note when they
discover his body remember i said earlier men are not supposed to be able to read or write so the
fact when they found his body like i don't tell anyone like he wrote something down like the
fact that he could read it was like oh man that'll be embarrassing don't tell me that's not
that he could read it was like oh man i'll be embarrassing don't tell anyone you know i mean
like truly post gavilar's death his son alokar becomes king and enacts something called the
vengeance pact he calls all the high princes of the various like different mini kingdoms within alakar
to declare war on the parshendi who have taken credit for gavilar's death and essentially most
of the military might of alakar moves on to the shattered plains and a massive war over the
shattered plains begins now that's most of like the background stuff any like i'm about to go into
characters is there any like smaller questions you have possibly about any of that section
uh not at the moment no no no like this just to give it like a scale of it like the high princes
almost do act like their own mini kingdoms a lot of the time and even when they there's this massive
like ho which is probably like 100 000 strong plus they go to fight these parshmen a lot like
their own home territories when they leave them they still like war between themselves because
they're just like why not and we begin now with like some of the characters that which like the
pov characters i'm just going to end on this uh part here which are some of the characters we're
going to follow throughout most of the stormlight archive this again this is like this is just the
beginning part of their stories and it takes a massive amount of time i can't express how good
like the dialogue and world building is um with a lot of these stuff so the first character is
called zeth son son velano uh in brackets he's called the truthless now seth is a shin man so
he's one of the shin of all he's one of those ones who look like anime girls you know i mean
he said earlier so he's he's my five foot king um very big eyes but he's also 30 years old um at
the start of the series but when people is it like when people see people who are shin they often
like mistake them for children until they get close like oh he's a shin because he's got huge
eyes they like a little bit awkward uh yeah so seth is the assassin in white and he essentially was
sold into slavery by his homeland for the crime of being truthless which means that he basically
told a lie to his society which was the fact that he thought the next desolation and the return of
their knight's radiant was coming he had seen something which made him believe that and he said
it and essentially they punished him and sold him into slavery and seth is a miserable character
like the the dude is totally like ready to go at any point and he is held captive by this thing
called his oath stone which essentially like in shin about like the the way they believe it with
like their slavery is like when they give them oath stones it's essentially a stone which inhabits
like his the will and his sense of being and whoever holds the oath stone is like his mask and
has complete control over him so if someone's like oh i bought him but someone else owns the
oath stone that person like whoever has the oath stone he will do whatever they say and for many
years seth was tossed around as like a slave he couldn't bring himself to commit the gravest sin
in all of shinnevarian like society which was to take his own life if you know what i mean like he
couldn't do it so but essentially seth is very much trained and special in some way and he also has
a shard blade and he the interesting thing about his character like he blames other people mostly
for what happens to him so he is instructed at some points to kill the king gavilar and just as
he just goes and does it and he basically is like he's constantly in denial about the fact like oh
i'm doing this he's very much like he thinks if only people had tried harder to kill me then it
would all be fine like they just needed to kill me what's wrong with them seth is a very unfortunate
and very tragic character and after king gavilar's death his oath stone is picked up by a mysterious
figure who tells him he has a new instruction for him and he is to kill all monarchs so that's where
like his story sort of begins the next character is called shalan devar i should mention that i've
had some artwork there is the artwork i've got of like shin i'm sorry shin shin shin which one is it
he's no seth he's a shin he's uh he's the one who's like dancing like the wall and like he's holding
like the shard blade the combat by the way in the books way to describe it is super like well done
just because it's like the particular the way he like lashes himself in combat and like when my
soldiers are fighting him and then he just like inverts like like say like he touches someone's
shield and then suddenly the shield like just sticks at the floor so combat's like very dynamic
in terms like with surge binding there's another character called shalan devar who in the artistic
renditions example is the redheaded female if you see down there uh shalan is like a late teenager
at the start of the series right maybe 17 18 and she is from the kingdom of yaka bed so she's not
an alethi um but she also has red hair so people often joke like she's also got some of the uh
unka lucky or like the horn eater uh jeans in her um just an example i like horn eaters they talk
really funny so when people are redheads sometimes they impersonate being horn eaters because
because the people get like basically horn eaters have like a thousand different kings queens and
princesses and like oh my god i have to talk to this annoying person shalan at the start of the
series is on her way to the port city of karbrant which is below alethkar and above the island state
of um which one is it called again so could you guys saw on my map it is the oh yeah
thaila thailanar karbrant and it's actually very easy to see on the first map i always put out for
the uh visual lookers here karbrant is between alethkar and thailanar just on the uh western
side of the frost land karbrant is like one that is the city state i've described earlier where
like it's entirely kept in like a cove like cliff area so it's completely protected and
it's like a very like wealthy like merchant city and shalan is on her way she's left
she's left her first time of um she's also a lighthouse by the way as i mentioned like she's
a she's of the nobility and she's leaving her home to go ask to be a ward to the late king's
daughter yasna kolin now it's not all sunshine and rainbows unfortunately for her because
her family back home are relying on her to save them because the entire dvar family is basically
pretending that their father is still alive uh because they're trying to basically play with
the fact that their father had acquired a lot of debt pretending like oh he's still alive
and shalan has a plan to sort of help save their family uh shalan's like unique thing about her is
like the fact that her memory is photographic so she has the idea like she can recall things from
like obviously like how photographing means work and she can draw things from memory almost like a
perfect level she's a very very good artist but she has as like said at the very beginning of this
uh mental health is the key here brothers um she has a strong problem with like dissociation i
don't know if that's like the right way to phrase it but essentially when she thinks like a terrible
memory she just dissociates and then it stops thinking about like she pushed it to the side
this is all from like her father cruelty when she was growing up and the reason she is traveling
towards particularly yasna kolin who's the daughter of the late king who is in uh carbrant city is she
doesn't want to learn or be her ward but she's there to steal something from her called a fabrial
fabrials are basically like the stormlight gemstones that are like turned into a small
they're very like incredibly rare devices probably should have mentioned it earlier but
essentially when you want to produce something a fabrial can like recreate and like an object or
a piece of a thing and it just uses stormlight to do it so often armies have like loads of people
who use fabrials to recreate food but it doesn't taste very good so people who live in like alif
car they often say like they have really spicy food because they have to import spices to put
on all that fabrials made food kind of like the like like really wonka fake food or something like
very crappy so fabulous are because right is it like an imperfect copy then or is it just in the
case of food it's not good like if they recreate like a sword right is it yeah it's not very it's
not perfect it's okay it's like it'll dull quicker or shatter it's like if you made all food like all
like if you've seen tofu versions of food so it looks like steak but it's actually just tofu and
it all tastes kind of the same if i remember correctly i think that's kind of how it is
it's pretty like is a it's always like a slight blander copy of whatever you're doing and it
requires a lot of stormite to make it but they can be used for things like say if you wanted to
think one example was her father was using a fabrial to recreate um they had like a disused
mine for like marble and he would use the fabrial to create marble so then they have like it's like
a money-making process but most fabrials are pretty like tight locked obviously because of how
overpowered they are they don't they're not perfect though they can't do like loads of stuff at one
go but they're pretty useful obviously but uh she is essentially traveling by ship she's been
chasing yasna across the world because she wants to steal yasna's the through the colin family
yasna's colin's very famous fabrial in order to replace replace the broken one uh that is with
her family in yaka bed which because her father got that one from shady people and basically they
want them to pay up and give them back a fabrial and they're like oh we're in deep crap um but
shalan is essentially a young girl who's like out on a journey to essentially try and save her like
the entire family is like relying on her and she's just like she's the only girl of all these
brothers and she's got a lot of problems but she's just going for it uh another character who's one
the pb character's court is uh yasna colin not as much in the first book but i think they um
expand a lot on her later she is the daughter of former king uh well now dead king gavilar and her
brother is the now king of alethkar she is the older sibling uh yasna is perhaps one of the most
smart like the one of the smartest people probably in the world definitely the smartest person in the
room by far a lot of time she's an extreme scholar like her mother and she is a pretty unique case
where like she's actually the only person who's probably an atheist in she's the only open like
atheist in all of like any society because she generally like she's like i haven't made a
conclusion on it and people like oh my god what do you mean you don't believe in like the divinity
of like the heralds and all that stuff like what's wrong with you and after her father's death
she is on a mission to discover the reason like why her father was killed by the pashendi who they
just met and it was seemingly going really well with but what reason did the pashendi have to
enact this war and this research is leading her to look into the desolations and the void bringers
yasna is a very interesting character just because i think she pretty much is like she's always like
the most competent person ever but for a lot of people like she often appears like shut off and
cold a lot of times she does do that just because she's trying to protect herself from like many
parts like pain and things like that she and a lot of people like particularly like being like
obviously a woman of like nobility people have often had plans on her and she refuses to live
by that and she wants to be like a scholar to the point of like that's what she cares about and she
doesn't really want to do the things like other you know noble she'll be chasing boys or doing
any stupid stuff like other you know highborn ladies there's a funny point like her she's so
good with her like witty dialogue like some of the male characters who have tried to like
you know like just talk to her she very much is like leave them crying at the end of it because
it just can't keep up with her she's very very cool almost done there boys and there is the
next one so a quick sip of water there yeah hydrate after all that yeah i'm hammering it in
um hopefully the fire's crackling and people still able to stay with it um the next character is
called high prince dalinar who is yasna's uncle and he was the brother to king gavilar dalinar if
you see in the art so certainly i was i've done underneath where the redhead shalan was there was
a picture of what yasna looks like and underneath that that is what high prince dalinar looks like
dalinar is a boy um he's a been a lifelong warrior he helped his brother unite all the princes
into one kingdom he was nicknamed the black thorn due to his like reputation of being utterly
ruthless as a warrior and sort of fighter obviously where they grew up and out of the car war is
basically their blood um after his brother's death well he he feels a lot of guilt for his brother's
death because he wasn't there because on the night the assassin in white appeared he was drinking
and there will be an expansion on that a lot in some of the later books but post his brother's
death dalinar is one of the other high princes and he joins the vengeance pact with his nephew
who is the king and he starts to look into what gavilar meant by the quote written in his blood
which is from a book called the way of kings which is obviously what the first book is named after
the way of kings itself is it's kind of like a scholarly uh book of wisdom that was written by
a long dead king at the end of his life long ago and it's a sort of code of conduct for how kings
should operate like how kings are very much like you know it's like that creed of like you know if
you want power are you willing to lower yourself to you know pick up you know that sort of creed
and it's very much like a way of how kings should operate and behave and his brother supposedly had
been looking into it and then go forbid reading it at some point and dalinar starts to ask um
other highborn ladies like read him the book because he's now trying to understand more
about his brother post-death dalinar at the start of the series well just a slight time in here like
all of the high princes have basically moved like a sort of they have a temporary city that's set up
near the shattered plains that like it's been this the war has been going on for about six years at
this point um just because they basically a lot of them like are enjoying fighting the parshendi
in these like massive battles across like the chasms and like these different areas and it's
it's also probably gem hearts yeah there are things called gem hearts which like basically
massive gems are like similar to the smaller gems which store stormlight which come from these like
massive like crab like creatures which they basically hunt as well so basically they're having a
massive ball a massive fun time in shattered plains so they military industrial military complex
pretty much yeah and um dan when the first book is happening he's undergoing visions every time a
high storm is passing over and he starts like screaming like people have to hold his body down
but he can't wake and he starts to see visions of past desolations he sees the recreants when the
knights radiant like abandoned all their shards and charplate and every time a vision ends like
he he ends up with a character someone who's in the vision he kind of can interact with it in like a
like a really realistic way and at the end of every single vision a voice like booms over and
someone looks to him and says unite them and it just screams it to him every time he undergoes
a vision and the last character is my boy my favorite character is called caladin caladin is
for the way of kings the first book uh he is mostly like each of the main books um follows
like the main story and then they follow a like uh they they explore the background of a particular
character in each of the books the first one's like caladin the next one like shalom and things
like that and caladin is a dark-eyed boy from a poor region of like north alucar and he is training
under his father to become a surgeon which is like quite a big deal for like a lowborn dark-eyed boy
in alucar and using a donation from their uh the recently deceased local bright lord they're like
bright you know their light eyes lord um basically it's allowing caladin to go and train in i think
is it carparanth or another city to go be a surgeon which is like a big thing and caladin
himself is quite like a mopey teenager at this point he doesn't really he's good at like surgery
and stuff like that and he's good at being you know a medical sort of professional in some regard
but he doesn't really want to do he kind of has his desire to like the ability to fight within him
is like there he doesn't know why but like he feels like a sort of you know like he can sort of
feels like that way like the way of water almost he's got the fire or whatever yeah like it's like
it tied into him and he's a very protective older brother to tian his little younger brother tian is
a very gentle gentle boy he is like i made he literally makes calin's calin's like a very grumpy
person but he always smiles when tian like i got you this rock and it looks so pretty like he's
very very nice tian's like sheltered if you know what i mean like a very like tian's like a very
precious child he needs a lot of help and he's very shy and doesn't like talk to people
whereas caladin is like very standoffish and protective one day when their new bright lord
who by the way this bright lord will come again up again this new one he's an absolute p.o.s this guy
is the worst this guy is like i can't describe he is like the sniveling like he's the their new
bright lord because he got ousted from somewhere else because he's such a p.o.s and he's like
sniveling son up here and this bright lord seeks revenge on calin's father who failed to save the
bright lord's son after there was a hunting accident because the father basically said i
can't save the son the the father and the son were both injured and he was like begging save my son
and they went the father went the son's actually gonna die because been pierced by like massive
thorns i can only save you and he chooses to save the bright lord obviously the right thing to do
but probably the wrong thing to do if you know i mean just in terms like it really ruins their
lives so he offers up tian the younger brother to bright lord amaran who's basically uh sorry he's
offered him up as one of the conscripts of one of the many border wars that's happening whilst all
the big boys are in the shattered plains fighting the the singing you know double partners you know
parshendi and tian is like not appropriate for this at all but the bright lord has taken his quote
unquote revenge calin against his father's wishes joins amaran to protect his little brother and
calin's kind of all right with it because amaran is like seen as like he's a bright lord and the
light eyes but he's seen as like one of the good ones he treats people with respect and people
offer like you know i don't like light eyes but you know that amaran guy is a good one
and the story essentially starts with calin as a slave so it goes downhill um he goes downhill
from there now he i guess worse even than that he gets um yeah sorry current theme calin's mental
health issue because they all have it uh is sorry saying earlier dalinar's mental health issue
earlier is essentially guilt not come up a lot in the story um calin's one is uber depression my
boy suffers depression hard uh he is at the start of the story a branded slave and are following the
death of his brother so right at the beginning of the book you're like his brother died his brother
died because some other soldiers didn't protect him he got killed like a border skirmish like
pretty quickly on when they were soldiers he was branded as a deserter and is calin is currently
being shipped away to be uh sent to the shattered plains to be sold into something called a bridge
crew the bridge crews are essentially slave crews who drive the massive massive like wooden bridges
that allow armies to like run across a different shattered so basically you know like the total
war maps colin like there's that one one that has two bridges like something like that those those
ones you always hope for essentially yeah most of like all the shattered plains is just like cut
off sections like that and they have to make bridges and like these little beach heads into
like these massive like battles between like knights and horsemen and archers and then like
the posh endy lines and the only way to do that is through bridge crews and essentially a lot of time
is being in a bridge crew is like certain death because you are basically fodder and he's being
sold into a bridge crew but throughout caladin's journey there he is mysteriously followed by a
wind spren which i will happily expand on one day and the very last thing here i'm just gonna end
on this brothers is the character elia you know him as wit you know he won't talk about kings this
is a character goes by the name wit and this is this is a character like a reoccurring thing
um you don't really get a pav of him but he's i want to talk about him the king's sorry he is
he is the wit and he is basically called like the king's like the king's wit or the basic the jester
of king elokar slash the alethi kingdom and he's in the shattered plains like temporary capital
at the moment and essentially the king's wit is a position where they in alethkar you can't really
like be seen to insult someone because people often just duel you like you can't talk crap at
anyone but there is a way around that which is having like a king's wit who's basically their
job is to go around insulting people and basically being witty and funny and annoying as hell so he
basically got to be like oh lady i can't be here wearing that tonight is it distract you from your
stanky breath or something the king's wit is a hilarious character who every single person
groans when they see the king's wit even like dalinar who's like a very like straight edge like
soldier type of figure he's like oh my god it's a wit you know i mean like every time the wit the
king's wit is around everyone is smiling but there's something a bit more to the king's wit he seems
to know things like he shouldn't he knows things about the whole universe and rochard like he
that have not been told i'm pretty sure his character is in all of the uh yeah slight slight
support he his character appears in multiple different universes in the cosmic or whatever
like in the other series that brandon sandson writes there's something strange about the king's
wit but honestly whenever he's in the scene he's absolutely hilarious um something he has great
interactions with like some characters i can't spoil now but he is particularly uh funny and
there's like another character who well i think one of the bright lords who like we end up hating
in the series like i mean whenever he sees him this guy has been like always on top he's a big dog
and whenever the king's wit is like near him this guy is like oh my god he actually wants to run
away from him like he's a big badass warrior but he's like scared the king's wit because the way
it's about to like tear him apart it's like his deepest most horrible insecurities um uh the funny
part about the king's wit is like everyone's trying to kill him so the position of king's
wit particularly the current wit has held it the longest longer than anyone else's before because
essentially whoever's king's wit always gets assassinated relatively quickly so because
they're so annoying um but his current king's wit has been around the longest and he is a
recurring character that ladies and gentlemen though is essentially the
that is the current setup for most of the stormlight archive i have attached some for the
boys here there's like some visual arts of some of the things i put on screen during the um
recording here though i'll describe some of them they're like some of them are
the characters i might describe a bit better so delinar himself is i think i didn't describe him
earlier but he's like quite like a tall very broad man he's in his 50s he has two sons who are like
reoccurring slash more prominent characters later one's called aidlin he's like the older brother
the perfect warrior perfect handsome son and then he has a younger boy called ronarin who's kind of
like a very like i don't know if ronarin has possibly speculated maybe he has autism or
possibly on the spectrum or has like extreme social anxiety but ronarin is not the most classic
classic alethi character and so he's often insulted by people but aidlin his brother and his father
are very protective of him uh delinar is built like a you know brick house my my dude is huge
huge muscular he's quite good like they're quite handsome like just the colons all of them are
really and he's you know he can fight like no one but he's always learning to be a more wise
character but yeah he's pretty built starting he's starting to gray cuttings in his early 50s at the
time of the start of the first book he's still a baller he's the dude still goes hard dude like
because when he's in shower plate there's parts where like he just jumps off cliffs and then
like rams into like parshendi lines and just goes at it goes at it hard like my dude is truly carrying
the series uh caledon is like caledon's only i think 19 at the start he's tall he's dark dark
skin dark eyes dark hair uh he's got very long like mopey hair um he's does have this brand like a
tattoo slash burn into his forehead that like his slave brand uh yasna colin is very much similar to
dal and iron features so like you know light eyes you know sort of fine figure shalans often says
she finds it annoying about yasna how she's literally perfect almost because she's like very
good looking but she's also incredibly smart as well shalon doesn't look like the rest of the
alethi she's like quite pale skin she's redhead so obviously she often jokes about her being like a
horn eater zeth obviously quite small he's nimble though and my dude is expressly expressio depressio
my dude is having a bad time there are some smaller side characters which i'll probably get into a
future one there is yasna's uh mother who was king gavilar's wife who was lady nirvani who by the way
lady nirvani i'll have to get into at some point but she essentially was dalinar's like first love
although they were never together and then like later on the book after gavilar's like death
they're like there is some things going on between those two so it's like interesting to
sort of like that's all in the first book so it's not like two major spoilers uh characters we will
see again not like things like amaran and uh wit and seth and the particularly the sons dalinar
but and all these characters will be coming up and then there's one more character called
uh sadius this is another one of the high princes and this dude can truly this dude can sit in a
fire hydrant and make it disappear i despise this man this guy is a horrible bastard but um you'll
you'll learn more about him in the books but for now that's kind of most of it how do you feel
about that so far colins also that's just a lot of world building i what is i'm trying i'm trying
i'm trying to remember that it's not a quote but it's like the more the more you learn the more you
understand you don't know anything yeah like it's very slowly introduced to you in the book
because they're so it's such a long read each of them but it's like i don't i feel like i even
after all that i feel like i don't do it justice to how well the world building i i it wasn't it's uh
i think the more you the more you know the more you understand you don't know if that makes sense
or it's like you understand you there's so much more you don't know about does that make sense
yeah like there there is this is this is a hefty world i mean what did you say the audio books are
like 45 hours long yeah there's like one of them one of them yeah like there's about if i look it
up i think the there's five main books and then there's some novellas going in between each book
and the main books are about 45 to 50 hours long of audio each book yeah it's a lot but the thing
is it does it is all these stuff that introduce you so sorry like you just like when you finish
one book i reckon like if you finish book one i reckon you could literally do all of what i just
did now because it's just such a like um like a heavy like input a heavy like imprint into your
mind a lot of this stuff but it's very like i i again like the stormlight archive i feel like i
don't do it quite justice how well i like a lot of the character like payoffs are particularly
a lot of the character things that happen in it they're very slow that's my own like slight
gripe with it like some of the things like take forever to happen but once i do you're like
yelling you're like yes um but it's so there's like the world in itself is huge um but for
context most of the story is happening on the shattered plains like pretty much 90 percent
of it in book one at least anyway so uh it's a lot but uh i think there are some cool aspects to it
like i'd like the idea of um the knight's radiant abilities obviously they're quite
like the idea of like some of that like it's not every part of this is unique but in terms like
how it's all fit together in terms like it's um story building and i was like oh no no no i was
gonna i had a comment though so it wasn't i was trying to cut you off sorry oh yeah so but they
do a good job of like each part of every layer of like society within so my archive is represented
even down to like the parsh men the parshendi and aleth kars like you know being a dark eyes to a
bright lord itself like every level of it and there's like the underlying mystery of
desolations and the void bringers that is a sort of main like it's very odd like it says it quite
early on in books i don't feel like it's too much of a spoiler but the desolations and void bringers
is a very important um subject that will come up and you'll love it yeah it does i this was it was
way earlier some you brought up but i really i don't i really like the idea of both just that
at the edges of the world there's the high storm was uh yeah and uh just that every now and then
it just sweeps over i don't i don't that's always like some stuff like that has been always something
kind of interesting to me like something that above all other things is just something else
everyone just has to deal with every now and again oh yeah like they even say like they've had someone
one they someone tried to sail like to find the origin of a high storm but like they just couldn't
it wasn't even possible like some ship tried it once off like the coast something but yeah although
i got a big thing like when like ships are trapped in the sea during a high storm like is incredibly
dangerous as well so the whole world operates around high storms but it's also like their form
of energy as well which is quite strange but it's quite unique to this uh world i think anyway um
it uh it reminds me of a it's not a one-to-one but it reminds me of a like uh i don't know if you've
played it hal but i'm you might have elia endless legend yeah like how the the winter is getting
longer and longer and they just have to figure out like oh how do we deal with this or alternatively
like the uh like the fate the fire fading you know fireside fantasy uh endless universe will
happen someday or the fire fading in dark souls where it's like like ignoring everyone else's
schemes in it this is someone everything has to deal with oh yeah like the um there's a lot of
things like a lot of these different threads though like the i don't think any other series
quite does it as well where like every single threat isn't like game of thrones means of eight
where you're like but so many things were left unturned like every thread in the stormlight archive
is pulled together and means something the payoff is worth it if there are things that like i said in
book one at the very beginning you're like what's that random like that one does get paid off at
some point there's no brandon sands doesn't quite forget anything which i do like because
you don't feel like you don't really feel lost because a lot of time like even though this is
like all this world building in the background the you're you're just following the story of like
those like these main characters like kaladin dalinar shalan and yasna you're you're just
following their story and the way in which they interact with the whole world you just learn all
these other things about roshar itself because like the high storms are like intrinsic to the
story itself as well like the actual world itself is a pivotal point of what's going to be happening
in the later plots and even though the book starts with like the thing of the heralds and
king gavilar's death like a lot of times in some books they're open on a thing like king gavilar's
death and the heralds they are actually central to the entire plot as well so you keep coming back to
them in a way and then you learn more and more and how it interacts with the characters but again i
feel like it's hard to do justice with um just go read it just go read the book yeah it's like
someone you know like the character we all love it like kai's fuz kane whereas like you can say how
good the books are with kai's fuz kane you can't you have to go read a book on kai's fuz kane you
feel like that was so good man like you know i mean you have to really go enjoy it and then
and i was i was saying not this is i think you did a very good job uh like introducing it it's
just uh there's just like you said there's a certain amount like at a certain point you need
to you need to you need to go read the damn book to really appreciate books uh how good they are
but uh so i think you did a good job i am very interested in it now there's a few things were
like i mentioned something like the asian empire earlier that's not a thing in book one luckily
like it's just one of things like it just slowly like most of the story as i said earlier in book
one is shattered plains and then it expands out into like the rest of the world obviously
that is incorporated into the story so it is it's like it does a good thing of like small scale to
big scale if you know what i mean the book doesn't throw a million things at you all at once
no and also particularly each book like shalan, kaladin, dalinar, zef, sun sun and mostly just
call him zef and so yeah so dalinar, kiasna, shalan, zef each of the books like when they say
they have like sections where like they kind of so two-thirds of the book of book one is the main
plot one-third of it is kaladin's backstory book two is two-thirds the main plot one-third shalan
so you you only you you really get to know like you're just focused on that like character in some
aspects and you're not like you know i mean like certain things make more sense of previous things
like happen but it's mostly just like i know what's going on like i'm not lost at any point
which is like again for how much audio there is and how much stuff there is to learn about the
whole universe like a lot of it is so slowly introduced and again it's so heavily character
focus even though i've only like an introduction today the like i don't i get like the character
journeys particularly like there's a theme of like each of these characters is dealing with like a
mental health issue and like their character arcs about how they are coping or slowly trying in a
way to get but they're not perfect they're not like these things like at most things you read
it's like the the character particularly i have a companion warhammer which is like the character
arc finishes whereas like in real life you don't have a character your character arc doesn't finish
until you've finished if you know i mean so like the characters are doing better at some points but
then certain things throw wrenches into it but again it just is a very uh i think brandon sandin
just said like he had to ask for like do a lot of research into particular things that characters
go through just to make sure he was getting it right in terms of like how someone does react
to that experience and so that's quite refreshing it's not like it's not like a therapy book but
it's very much a damn you know i mean i really enjoyed how on point it is it's not it's so
realistic in terms of like the human experience rather than like you know there's things like
spren and sharp blade sharp blade sharp blades and magic and all that stuff but it's it's completely
like you know it's seasoning on what is like the actual characters of them because a lot of them
are dealing with very heavy stuff but they're good books go read the books chat or comment section
go read the books or listen to them they're easy to listen to and if you do if you if you did like
this uh episode here because i think we've given quite a lot of audio for this episode um if you
want us to do like a possibly another one in the future well i've kind of done all the setup for
most of it and then i would probably just go straight on to doing like the journey of like
a character say in each uh like book one or book two or something like that again there's just so
much that it would like each character's journey through one book is a already like an hour and a
half uh amount of talking so hopefully uh if you guys do like that stuff and we've also got more
fancy or more uh the fire size when we're doing this is like you know we like other things too
and uh there are some like other universes out there like are very like they do hit just as
equally as hard as like warhammer particularly in terms of uh quality of writing and we're usually
better usually a lot better actually try to refrain from commenting spoilers as well
don't uh or like flag it or whatever if you're gonna comment spoilers i found uh i found a good
way is to uh you know you know spoiler alert and then have 5 000 lines of just dot dot dot enter
dot enter dot enter then you can do your spoiler yeah let us know how you feel about the series as
well just in general other recommendations because uh my i was saying at the very beginning
mr brandon sanderson my man is the opposite of george hall and martin this guy is pumping out
quality books i think he does a book like every two years ridiculous yeah my he finished off the
the will you know those the weather times there's like 17 books long and then he wrote the least he
said you know what i'ma help and he finished he wrote the late like i can write the last three
books and he did it like pretty much like three years and like damn my boy uh yeah he's a great
writer and uh hopefully we get like a mistborn series live action in the future probably not
the stormlight archive in live action because it's just too long but if there's like an animated
version of this it'll be damn damn cool um other than that thank you everyone for listening this
is quite a lot hopefully people have enjoyed this little foray into a different uh universe
they obviously will you know we all like one the fancy in some regards so other fancy stuff is
still pretty enjoyable indeed other than that we'll catch you all on the next one peace brothers
have a good one everyone love you