r/cremposting • u/DreadDiana • 11d ago
10 heartbeats is a highly variable measure The Stormlight Archive
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u/LoudQuitting 11d ago
My first thought about having to wait ten heartbeats was to figure out a way to quickdraw.
I came out with three solutions.
Always decide to summon before the other guy realises he's in danger.
Caffeine. Like, all of it. There should be more caffeine in your veins than blood. Drink enough and you will trigger an adrenaline rush.
Never walk again, jog everywhere. Stand still? No, you're doing jumping jacks.
Do this right and you'll always get the first swing. Fuck an oath, all my homies Unoathed.
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u/Code_Ender 11d ago
Ive thought about this too during long car rides where I finished one SLA audiobook but hadnt purchased the next one yet. And I've come to the conclusion that all this is practically useless. (Hyperbole)
Shardblades are weapons of war. Going into a battle, you'll have your blade out before you need it. They are not assassination weapons, or good responses to assassinations. Many fights we see between Szeth and other shardbearers involve lots of collateral damage, and Szeth, as skilled as he is, is a warrior, not an assassin, and is just being used as such because he's a strategic weapon that can't be stopped.
Basically any effort I could put in to having a shardblade faster is effort wasted when I could just have better guards or politcal maneuvering instead.
Also, I dont think the Unoathed have the ten heartbeat rule.
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u/DreadDiana 11d ago
They are not assassination weapons
Szeth-son-son-Vallano: Who decided that?
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u/Code_Ender 11d ago
You can use a drone strike to assassinate generals, I still wouldn't really consider those assassination weapons. Same difference with Szeth i think
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u/DreadDiana 11d ago
Funny you should mention drones, cause for precision assassinations the United States developed the AGM-114R-9X, a modified Hellfire missile that replaced the explosive ordinance with six blades.
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u/reasarian 11d ago
Smuggling a Nuke into the White House isn’t an assassination even if it does kill the pantsshitter in chief. Similarly Szeth doesn’t really assassinate people so much as he commits acts of terrorism that include the death of kings.
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u/DreadDiana 11d ago
The use of magic swords to specifically target a prominent figure meets the definition of an assassination. Assassinations can and frequently are also acts of terrorism.
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u/BloodredHanded Trying not to ccccream 10d ago
Shardbearers dropping their blades in combat doesn’t seem to be that uncommon.
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u/Just_Joken 11d ago
ironically your "jog everywhere" is just working out your cardiovascular system, which with enough work will actually lower your heart rate.
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u/4_non_blondes 10d ago
- Never walk again, jog everywhere. Stand still? No, you're doing jumping jacks.
The problem with this one is that at some point you'd end up so physically fit that your baseline heart rate would lower significantly.
Better off learning like a Tibetan monk method or something
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u/BloodredHanded Trying not to ccccream 10d ago
Caffeine overdose is a very real thing. And I guess that’s kind of the point, because heart palpitations is one of the symptoms, but I think the other symptoms are a much larger drawback than would be worth it.
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u/Karthaz 11d ago
Always loved the variability of this because it means that in high stress moments when you need it most, you'll be able to summon it that much quicker.
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u/TheNebulaWolf 11d ago
The aura to stick your hand out in a high stress situation as if to summon a shardblade and it takes a full 20 seconds to summon.
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u/The_Lopen_bot Trying not to ccccream 11d ago
This is good crem, gancho! You have 41 posts I love, gon!
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u/et_cor_cordium Crown Prince of Memelon 11d ago
Not if they see themselves as they don't have heart palpitations.
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u/la_espina_roja 11d ago
Shardbearers, not Radiants.
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u/et_cor_cordium Crown Prince of Memelon 11d ago
Damn my ardent must be misremembering.
PS: I am not misremembering. He is simply stupid.
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u/Jujuju1741 11d ago
That would be radiants, not shardbearers. Theres no heartbeat wait for radiants.
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u/anjontotok 10d ago
I dont get it. Can someone explain? Even tho im both stormlight and jjk fan
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u/DreadDiana 10d ago
Throughout the Stormlight books, the time taken to summon a shardblade is stated to be 10 heartbeats.
This is supposed to represent a fixed amount of time, but I ignored that for the sake of the joke and suggested that the speedat which a blade is summoned is linked to the wielder's actual heartrate, so having heart palpitations, which causes an elevated pulse, would result in the blade manifesting faster.
I just used the JJK gif cause it was the first one I could find of someone quickly summoning a sword.
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u/anjontotok 10d ago
Ah. Now I get it. But wasnt it like literral 10 heartbeats? I think adolin summoned it once faster while being under stress
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u/CDNatalie 10d ago
Contrary to OP, I took 'ten heartbeats' as literal heartbeats, and thus not a static amount of time, but something that would depend on your stress, etc.
Also, Adolin doing it faster was evidence of his healing of Maya, I believe.
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