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Oathbringer spoilers! Which ideal gives you shardplate? is radiant shardplate inhabited by a spren? what advantages does radiant shardplate have over normal plate? Are shards basically just really powerful spren? could a shard betray its name? do shards need planets? Sorry About the long list of questions

Oathbringer spoilers

I would like to preface this by saying that I am not a clinical psychologist or psychiatric professional. I minored in Psychology in college, but that by no means makes me an expert. However, I have seen/heard a lot of people throwing around the idea that Shallan has Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder (DID/MPD). I humbly submit that this is inaccurate, as a necessity for this diagnosis is an associated amnesia when switching between personalities. @Dreamstorm offered an alternative diagnosis of Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) this link offers an explanation of that disorder. I think that OSDD fits better, but wonder if there is something else that may be a better diagnosis. What I would like to do is to run through what we are sure of and hopefully someone who is qualified can weigh in! 1. Shallan has experienced severe trauma in her youth. Her mother attempted to kill her, with Shallan instead killing her mother. 2. Shallan experienced a prolonged period of virtual imprisonment at the hands of her father. 3. Shallan witnessed physical, emotional, and verbal abuse at the hands of her father, including his maiming of several maids, the murder of her stepmother, and the ordered assassination of her stepmother. 4. Shallan feels incapable of dealing with certain social situations. 5. Shallan feels incapable of dealing with certain emotions, or strong emotions in general. I am trying to ignore the fact that Shallan has the ability to manifest different version of herself using her powers. It would be very difficult to give her a real world diagnosis if we start taking the fantastic into consideration. Other than that, please let me know if there is anything that I missed. Now for the fun part. What are your thoughts? Any Psychologists or Psychiatrists in the house?

So with Nightblood being in Oathbringer and now being in the possession of Szeth, what does that mean for the planned sequel to Warbreaker? The main thing that I'm wondering is how Nightblood got to Roshar as the sword was still on Nalthis at the end of Warbreaker. Is Nightblood the book going to be the story of how the sword landed in Szeth's hands? The continuity piece here is quite interesting. Since Nightblood didn't really say much to Szeth about how he got there, I just wonder the whole story behind that. Blackwatch Double Stomp...

In Oathbringer it mentions Dalinar being able to stick rocks together. That makes sense; he has the surge of adhesion. Later he needs to speak a different language so he uses adhesion again, but on a spiritual level to create enough Connection to speak/understand this language. Weird right? We know that he is able to use that surge on at least two realms. If a surgebinder is able to do it on 2 planes, it makes sense that they should be able to do it on all 3 planes. I was thinking of the possible implications of adhesion on the cognitive realm. What if you were to adhere your self (your identity? but I think that is stored in the spiritual) to the concept of greatness? Would people think of you every time they though of greatness? You would be the equivalent of a Rosharan rockstar over night. Fortunately the two orders with adhesion seem to have oaths that would prevent too much shadiness like adhering yourself to the concept of honesty and then scamming everyone (looking at you Veil) This theory would depend on whether all surgebinders can actually use their surges in all realms. It is possible that Dalinar only has adhesion in the physical and cognitive. Then again, maybe Kaladin has it in the Physical and cognitive. Maybe that is why some people trust Kaladin instinctively. He has subconsciously adhered himself to the concept of honor. I personally believe that they will be able to use it in all 3 depending on their own personal quirks. So a Windrunner might use it in the spiritual, but only if he is the ind of guy who would try and/or think like that.

Hi, I haven't followed the forum in a while. But i remember there beeing a worldhopper from Nhaltis somwhere in the cosmere. I think i maybe found her: I don't know if anyone has propoused this already. At least i didn't find anything. Let me hear your thoughts

For a bonded, or an unbonded. I'm curious for either. Do you think the bonded understand morality? Do their understandings differ depending on what type of spren? (i.e. Syl is better at understanding right and wrong [and by default, human nature] than Pattern, who often expresses confusion as to the reasons for humans' actions.) Do the unbonded think at all? Or do they think in images? Can they communicate? How does it work in Shadesmar? (If I recall, Jasnah mentions something about the Honorspren being vigilante in Shadesmar. Does this mean that all Honorspren can be bonded, and therefore they have consciousness, even if they are NOT bonded?) UGH. So many questions. Brandon WHY?

So did anyone else think that maybe Arclo (or other Dysian Aimian) happened to be in Kholinar when Kaladin and crew were there? I thought this when Kaladin noticed the cremling with a tan spot on its back in the winehouse with Adolin and Shallan. We know Arclo has taken an interest in the current Radiants (calling them the surgeon, the liar and the Highprince to Lift) and was obvious interested in Lift and Stump. Arclo also said he was friends with the ancient Radiants in Edgedancer. I know it may be a small detail to fixate on but I think Sanderson rarely wastes time on useless details. Do you think Arclo (or Aimians in general) may be observing the current Radiants and considering aiding them? Being practically immortal and knowing the ancient Radiants, I am sure there is tons of helpful information they could provide. Sorry if this has already been mentioned. I searched for the information before I posted. Cheers

I recently was linked to a Cosmeric bombshell dropped on Reddit: In case you, like me, haven't read Elantris recently enough to get what he was referring to, Oversleep helpfully summed it up in: So many questions here... -I thought the Dor ripped people apart, too -Does this go any way towards explaining the Ire? -Is Riino a Cognitive Shadow now? -My copy of Oathbringer is on a different continent, but I don't think it said anything about Riino's skin being silver. Kal wouldn't have mistaken him for a Shin if he was all weird and shiny, would he?

SPOILERS TO OATHBRINGER So in Oathbringer near the end of the book when Dalinar creates Honor’s Perpendicularity Dalinar says: ”I am unity.” Didn’t seem too strange, Honor kept telling him “Unite them”. Which I’m guessing we can all agree has multiple meanings. The people, the radiants, the honor blades maybe? Heralds? As well in this instance it is very literally the 3 realms. Later though... I forget who it was, I believe it was Odium... mentioned Dalinar’s ascension. So go with me here. What if Dalinar is becoming the unmentioned shard of Unity? It sounds like it could be a shard. I mean all this is a little hard for me to grasp. What are shards and how people ascend such as small Rayse/Odium isn’t quite clear. But I do believe it is noted that there is an un-named shard. And if you think of how Adonalsium was shattered, which is the oppsoite of being unified, it could make sense that it has been a hiding or missing shard. I sound crazy and probably way off but I thought it could be an interesting idea.

So let’s talk Renarin, shall we? Now, if you fine folks are anything like myself, you might have found yourself confused by some of the reveals that Oathbringer brought about regarding Renarin and his powers. This was a twist that I saw coming a long way off, and so I was more than ready when we found out that Renarin had been affected by a voidish corruption and that this was the reason for his strange and ominous visions. If you’d like to see how WoR foreshadowed this moment, you can check out my theory Renarin’s Visions and Truthwatching and see all the reasoning for this twist. However, what I want to do here today is get into the nitty gritty of what’s really going on. Is Renarin a Voidbinder or a Surgebinder or both? Is Glys a Voidspren? How do the visions work? How did this happen? All those good questions are the ones that I’d like to try to tackle here. Theory Disclaimer: Most of these things have not been confirmed in canon and Brandon has been cagey about answering or confirming. However, this explanation is the one which seems most plausible to me based on the evidence at hand. So let me do a bullet point run-down of what I think is happening: Glys is actually a valid Truthwatcher spren, not a voidspren. Renarin is a valid Truthwatcher Radiant and therefore a Surgebinder with access to the surges of Progression and Illumination. Renarin uses Stormlight to power his surges, just like other Radiants. Glys has been corrupted by the Unmade Sja-anat. As a result of this corruption, in addition to his normal Truthwatcher powers, Renarin is afflicted by involuntary visions of the future which neither he nor Glys can control. The points above are those that I feel are fairly concrete, and I’ll go into the reasoning behind those ideas later below. However, upon this assumed situation, I believe that the following ideas are viable possibilities. The following points are less certain than those above, but these are the ideas that seem the most plausible to me, given the circumstances: The powers that the Fused display are expressions of Voidbinding. Renarin’s future visions are possibly also an expression of Voidbinding, but his other powers are not. If Renarin’s Voidbinding and Fused Voidbinding work in the same way, it is possible that all Voidbinding powers come from the influence of the Unmade, in that Sja-anat can grant Voidish future visions while other Unmade grant different powers, like illusions, frictionlessness, or gravity, as we see other Fused use. And upon these assumptions, we find several questions arise regarding the nature of the situation: If both Renarin and the Fused are Voidbinders, is a spren involved in the granting of Voidbinding powers to the Fused in the same way they were granted to Renarin? If Voidish powers are each affiliated with an Unmade, why are there seemingly 10 powers on the Voidbinding chart if there are only 9 Unmade? Does Odium grant a Bondsmith equivalent himself? If Voidbinding powers are not granted by the Unmade, how are they gained? In what way are Renarin and the Fused similar in situation that grants them the same powers? What caused the hypergraphia that accompanied the visions of the Everstorm, and why does that no longer happen when Renarin gets visions? All of which are fascinating, but unfortunately, more likely to get a RAFO than an answer in a signing line. The first I have already asked and been RAFO’d and I believe the others are going to be answered similarly, if attempted. If I had to guess, these are reveals that will happen in Renarin’s flashback book. Considering that book is in the back five, we’ve probably got a while to wait. Alas. Regardless, no use fretting over the information we don’t have when it’s so much more fun to dissect the information we do have. And Oathbringer certainly gave us plenty to dissect. So, let’s take the situation that I’ve outlined above and break it down with some textual evidence to help explain where these ideas come from. Glys the Truthwatcher spren and Renarin the Radiant This is one of the easiest points to guess, considering the wealth of information we have on the topic. A lot of this is due to the Renarin point of view chapters in Part 5. (Thank you, Brandon, I owe you my soul for those.) Renarin’s surges seem to work perfectly normally. He heals people with Regrowth at several points in the novel, fairly naturally. I believe we see a slight, unconscious use of Illumination in the scene with Adolin and Gallant, when Renarin makes a perfected vision of Adolin appear. Renarin also mentions trying to train with Shallan in using Illumination, but he has difficulty with it. Now, it could be assumed that Renarin’s failure to grasp Illumination is a sign that his surges are wrong, and yet I think this is simply another example of a Radiant finding one surge more easy to pick up than another. Shallan is naturally better at Illumination than Transformation. Lift is better at Abrasion than Progression. It seems common enough that Radiants have an affinity for one of their surges over the other. For Renarin, I believe this is that Progression is easier than Illumination. In addition to his surges, Renarin’s other expressions of Radiant abilities seem normal. Glys is able to form as a Shardblade, which no one deems as looking out of the ordinary. It also functions to open Oathgates. His healing factor works as the other Radiants’, albeit augmented by his power of Progression to make healing extremely rapid. Most tellingly, his powers use Stormlight, just as all the others do. Ivory says that there is a rightness to the bond between Renarin and Glys and that spren of Odium should not be able to bond with humans under normal circumstances. Through all of these things, one can assume that Renarin and Glys have a valid Nahel bond and are bonded as Radiant and spren, just as the others are. Sja-anat’s Corruption However, in addition to the normal suite of a Truthwatcher’s powers and the Nahel bond, there is another factor in the mix: Sja-anat. When Sja-anat speaks with Shallan she speaks of her son when telling Shallan that she is not an enemy, as though he would vouch for her. This is undoubtedly Glys. It’s interesting to note that this seems to indicate that Glys is working with Sja-anat, possibly willingly. Perhaps she approached a Radiant spren hoping that by giving changing one of them, she would have an ally who would help the Radiants trust her. Or perhaps it’s something else. Hard to say at this point. Regardless, it is because of this that Renarin can see the future, and why he is consumed with visions. Though it is possible that other Truthwatchers have a manner of foresight, I don’t believe it would manifest as Renarin’s does. Ivory states that future sight is a power of Odium, as the Vorins believe. I believe Sja-anat has been hoping to swap sides and is using Glys as a way to do it, as well as helping Shallan instead of killing them when they went through the Oathgate. Voidbinding So in the end, what is Voidbinding? Hard to say with certainty, since despite how often we see Voidbinders, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of answers about it. Working under the assumption that the Fused’s powers are Voidbinding we can see a few things, at least: Voidbinding seems to line up with surges in many cases, as we see Fused manipulating gravity and friction, just like Kaladin and Lift. It’s hard to tell if this means that Renarin’s corrupted sight is also a form of Voidbinding as well, since it doesn’t seem to line up with a Surge the way the others are. The Listener Song of Secrets speaks of Nightform, a form of power which can see the future, which seems as though it might be more similar to what Renarin can do than anything else we’ve seen. The question is, Renarin is getting his void-powers from a corrupted spren, but I don’t believe that the Fused have a corrupted spren giving them powers, which initially made me think that Renarin’s visions were not Voidbinding like the Fused. Now, I’m not so sure. For the moment, I think I will lean toward the idea that Renarin’s visions and the powers of the Fused are both Voidbinding somehow, even if we don’t have details to confirm anything either way. There’s just not enough answers for the moment. Time will tell. If anyone can get answers out of Brandon regarding this topic, I’d be greatly appreciative but I doubt he’s going to answer things. Conclusion There’s a lot that we just don’t know yet, but I’m excited to see where this goes in the future. For now, this is my best guess at what’s really going on until we get some more information on all of it. One thing that hasn’t changed is that I adore Renarin with all of my heart and somehow Brandon continues to write his plotline and character arc in ways which are intensely fascinating to me. Oathbringer has been a triumph and I can’t wait to see what’s in store!

I apolgise if anyone has already mentioned this, but I didn't see it anywhere on the Oathbringer spoiler board. Also, some of my cosmere knowledge is questionable so I don't know if I have enough information to go on, but regardless, I must push on: Basically just after Dalinar briefly opens Honor's perpendicularity, Odium exclaims about having killed him already, and later in the scene where Taravangian and Odium meet, Odium remarks that Dalinar wasn't meant to Ascend (with a capital letter, the same way Sazed is spoken about when he became the holder of Harmony). Could this mean that Dalinar now holds Honor?

So, as far as I can remember we have three viewpoint characters that have sought the Old Magic: Dalinar, Taravangian, and Lift. Did any of them actually wind up dealing with the Nightwatcher instead of Cultivation herself? I'm leaning no, given how far what they each got was from what they asked for, and the difficulty of nailing down a discrete boon/curse for any of them. (Taravangian is closest in both these metrics, so I suppose he's most likely to have dealt with the Nightwatcher directly, but the outsize role the Diagram is playing in events makes me suspect Cultivation would have wanted to handle it personally.) The relevant Dalinar flashback implies that Cultivation steps in for some but not all supplicants, so it makes sense that these three, all of whom are going to have a huge role in this Desolation, would merit her attention. It's also possible that the lore we have about the Nightwatcher is unreliable, and even "standard" boons/curses are more complicated than we've been led to believe. It would be nice to have a PoV from somebody with a more standard experience, or even a scene where we see the Nightwatcher do her thing without intervention from the boss. Maybe Baxil will change his mind and be back for an interlude.

So it's a trope in anime that their massive swords break at least once. Tetsusaiga breaks in Inuyasha, Guts' sword breaks in Berserk in the battle of Doldry. So what if a Shardblade broke either in half or was shattered worse than the plains? How could this happen? My best guess would either be Nightblood, Odium or a Fused. Would an Honorblade break differently from a Shardblade? What if Syl was broken in blade form? Or Maya, what would happen to them?

So this is theory is just completely out there and a wild guess without much evidence to go on. Basically I theorize that "What If Obrodai is the planet where Dark One takes place?". We don't know much about Dark One other than that it's cosmere and the main character is destined to destroy the world. Based on the evidence from the second letter Obrodai is a shardworld or at least has a splinter of a shard/shardic presence. Due to its correlation with a shard that makes it a candidate for future books and stories and I really don't have anymore evidence than that. It's mostly just intuition honestly, not really a true theory. Well let me know what you think, and if you have any counter arguments or other ideas to add.

Okay, let me say I believe that chances of this happening is slim to none. But it’s pretty cool. What if Urithiru isn’t just a tower, but a giant barrel of some sort of “shardgun” that can fire into the Cosmere to other planets. I cant even jokingly back this up, but it’s so cool. Also: I’m almost positive Urithiru has a basement or sub levels.

I'm dedicating this, mainly, to discussions about the Unmade, particularly Sja-Anat, Taker of Secrets, and where they fit in the plot of SA. This was mainly inspired by section 4 of Oathbringer where Shallan communicates with Sja-Anat before using the Oathgate. Any theories, speculation, or hard evidence is accepted.

If I am late to this party, I apologize. I read WoK and WoR last year on a very superficial level. This month, I reread both before OB while taking copious notes on all three. And so I was among the genuinely shocked by the we-are-the-monsters reveal. We are the Voidbringers. But not all Roshar humans are Voidbringers, right? I mean, Kaladin and Dalinar have taken enormous steps in bridging the divide between humans and Parshendi. From the historical version of WoR: From the second viewing of Dalinar's first vision with Honor in WoK: And then from Oathbringer, we find an enormous rift between the Dustbringer spren (ashspren) and Honor and his Radiants: So Dustbringers = Voidbringers? And once Honor realizes that the Dustbringer-Voidbringers will bring about the True Desolation of the entire planet, he advocates the killing of ashspren? But that sprenicide might be the main impetus for the True Desolation in the first place, right? And so Odium wants us to turn against one another and squabble and bicker and make the Dustbringers angry. Humans will turn against one another and destroy themselves with the Voidbringer weapon of mass destruction. We are our own worst enemies, which is why he keeps telling Dalinar that he must "unite them." Unite the people. Unite the Radiants. (Unite the Heralds. Unite the humans and Parshendi. Unite the realms. Unite the Shards.)

My theory is that Odium is really what everyone else has always said he was, the shard of hatred (more or less), but Odium is able to absorb other emotions from people and give them back much like the pain spren in Navani's painrial do. All the emotions that Dalinar saw in the fiery inferno version of Odium, other than hatred, Odium collected from others and were not innate to the shard. Odium claims that he is not just hatred, but Passion. When Dalinar sees Odium's fiery inferno form he senses a lot different emotions, not just hatred. Later Odium tries to talk Dalinar into giving Odium his pain. Towards the end of OB Moash remarks to one of the Fused that he doesn't feel anything and the Fused tells him that Odium has taken his passion and will return it to Moash later. Navani's painrial's have pain spren in them. These spren are able to take the pain away from the wearer. The pain seems to be stored in the painrial because Navani is able reverse the flow of pain when she defends Queen Fen by disabling the would-be assassins in OB chapter 118. The assassins are only in pain temporarily, as if the fabrial only had so much stored up. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Painrial How can Odium do this and other shards haven't done it? It seems to have something to do with him being "The Void" an emptiness that allows him consumes the emotions of others. How does that relate to hatred of others for what they do or inspiring hatred in others? Perhaps there is an innate emptiness in hate, I don't know.

hey everyone! I host a podcast where me and my cohost talk about all sorts of nerdy things, but we often talk about Brandon Sanderson and his books. In our most recent episode we talk about our experience at the Oathbringer release party in Provo. We've talked about some of Brandon's works in our previous episodes as well. We talked about Oathbringer in the latest episode, but we are still reading the book, so we didn't talk spoilers or get too much in to depth with it, mostly just our impressions of the new book and how we are liking it so far. We plan on doing an episode in the near future where we spend a good amount of time talking Oathbringer and Stormlight Archive after we've finished reading the book. So if you get a chance, check us out and let me know what you think. We are a fairly new podcast, we're only on episode 11, so we are learning a lot and having fun. The podcast is called Random Angst and we are on iTunes and Soundcloud.

Hi Sharders! Long time lurker here but this is my very first post. Forgive me if this has been discussed but I don't think I have seen it yet though with all the ideas thrown around on this forum it is hard to keep track sometimes. I am of the opinion that the Fused are in fact souls of dead Knight Radiants who have been broken or corrupted by Odium. As far as I have been able to tell no where in Oathbringer does it actually say that they are Parshendi (it does say "they" and "their" though). From memory it says they are ancient soul of leaders and kings who are valiant warriors from long ago. From what we know of the cultures on Roshar, that sounds a lot more like KR than parsh. I believe that this would explain their access to Voidbinding too, as well as their deteriorating minds. As quite a few people have speculated, due to the Nahel bond replicating Honorblades, perhaps an unexpected side effect was that they get sent to Braise, like the heralds, after death. With the link to their spren broken at death this would leave their cognitive shadow stuck on Braise without hope of resurrection, giving Odium an unlimited amount of time to break their minds. Also with the Nahel bond broken, Odium would be able to easily fill the cracks in their sDNA with the requirements for Voidbinding. I think the KR learned this from Honor when he was losing his mind which was the final straw that caused the Recreance. Lastly, to back to back up this theory is the fact that all of the Fused eyes are permanently Red, indicating corruption by another shard. My other theory, along the same lines is that the Fused are the souls of the original Voidbringers, the first humans to settle on Roshar. This would be a better explanation for Voidbinding as they would have arrived on Roshar with it after destroying Ashyn. I do enjoy reading theories that get shot down as much as the plausible ones so if I am completely off the mark please let me know!

Hi all, I apologise if this is in another thread but if it is my 'extreme' technological skills have been unable to locate it. So I don't know if I'm missing something from oathbringer but it seems to brush over Kaladin and Jasnah's first meeting. They both arrive in Urithiru at the same time and Jasnah references meeting the windrunner (Kal) and seems to like his challenges from the meeting that followed about the parshmen. Why do you think this is? Was it just not not important? I think this is unlikely as it's two of the most important characters meeting for the first time. Do you guys think this will be explored in a future book? Possible start of a Kaladin/Jasnah romance? Jasnah did seem pretty annoyed with Shallan about her sketches of Kal. Maybe it has something to do with this rather than just the whole indiscretion thing on Shallans part and I know there's a lot of Kaladin/Jasnah shippers out there;)

Hello all! This is the first theory I have posted, so forgive me if I format things incorrectly or if this theory has already been posted before. Also there are spoilers for Oathbringer, so be ye wary if you haven't read it yet. Whilst skimming the book after having read it my first time, I found myself reading one of Hoid's little bits with Shallan in Kholinar. On page 676, Shallan notices that Hoid has a small sealed jar that was mostly black, but with a white part facing her. (Let me be plain here. I have scoured the Coppermind wiki a lot on the topic of Hoid so I'm mostly just reaffirming what I read there, forgive me if this information is already known by you fellow 17th Sharders.) I remember reading in Warbreaker Hoid telling Siri and Lightsong a story. In this story he used sand that could transform from white to black. Since we know that there is a sand based power on Taldain, this leads me to believe that Hoid must have gone there and learned sand mastery. This makes me wonder if Hoid has plans to use sand sometime in the SA series. While I must admit that I am uncertain about how sand mastery works, we do know that Investiture can be "replaced" (Stormlight can fulfill the need for Breath, as we see with Nightblood on Roshar.) This makes me wonder if you could use Stormlight to re-energize sand that has been used, or if you can draw upon the Investiture stored within the sand. I hope you all will understand this balderdash. I also hope that you can leave behind some helpful insight to help me understand more the integration between Invested magics. As I mentioned this is my first thing I have posted, so forgive me if it isn't strung together well.