woolhead

I see, so it means that if Ruin had the opportunity to pick up another shard, Cultivation would be a good one since it would let him keep on doing his thang, not clashing with his intent the way Preservation would (and is)?

Agreed, I wouldn't be surprised if Brandon had rolled these traditional attributes of god into Odium (jealousy does fit the last shard standing idea wonderfully) and Honour. The theme of interplay between God's justice (+wrath, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc) and mercy (the whole redemption of mankind storyline) fit very nicely into the Odium/Honour clash.

If you consider the traditional attributes of God, I think Honour provides one of the important counterbalances to Odium. God hates sin and all that jazz, but he is infinitely Just ... however God's Justice is often held in contrast to his Mercy, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a shard like that. For similar reasons, I suspect there wouldn't be a shard for something like Faith (an attribute of mortals, not of God), nor for 'weak' attributes like fear (and thus for courage) and envy. That said, the Lord is a Jealous God ... I think it's fascinating how you two have separately paired basically-Ruin and basically-Preservation with Cultivation. I had a thought that Ruin, Preservation and Cultivation might actually be a set of three. Brandon makes the collaboration of Preservation and Ruin being 'creation' seem very intuitive. But on second thought, it's actually more intuitive for Preservation to be the 'mid-point' between Ruin and 'creation' (Cultivation?). Regardless of whether these three shards are actually a 'set', it does seem likely that a world on which the two shards were Ruin and Cultivation might resemble the world that Preservation desires. If they were a set of three, the idea that Cultivation lies between Ruin and Preservation; and that Preservation lies between Ruin and Cultivation makes sense. Unfortunately, trying to fit Ruin between Cultivation and Preservation makes less sense, so maybe this theory is sunk before it even gets off the ground. Another thought - if they are a set of three, the fact that Cultivation didn't end up with Ruin and Preservation could easily be explained by the fact that she and Honour had a relationship, and so she would have set up with him before shardic intent led her to do otherwise. I'm curious about what this means. Is it that the shards are compatible? Or that Cultivation's as yet unnamed vessel would have been a good fit for the Ruin shard?

Man that looks really, really cool! I wonder if Brandon just used this as a handy way to generate a neat shape for a continent, or if the animation has significance. People have mentioned that it could represent the crem build up that formed Roshar. I wonder if its chaotic nature and the way it balloons out to both sides indicates that we're not seeing deposits from a consistently easterly source, but rather the result of the two colliding storms. Since the Everstorm is described as something new, maybe what we're seeing isn't Roshar's formation pattern but it's destruction (either the second half of the animation, or the first half played backwards).

I think the way it works is if you harm someone less fortunate than yourself then you're oppressive/bigoted/prejudiced/etc, if you ignore them you're complacent/bigoted/prejudiced/etc, and if you help them you're paternalistic/bigoted/prejudiced/etc.

You got me excited for a moment there, but then I realized it's just arranged so that it's the mirror of the KR chart border when they're laid out on opposite pages as they are in the book.

I didn't mean two types of creatures, I meant two mentions of Thunderclasts as stone creatures - one in one of Dalinar's visions in WoR and one in the Prelude.

Progression is the Healing surge isn't it? The one Lift uses to heal her thieving friend. Based on that and what we know about Lightweaving, I have to go with the least interesting option of number 1. Edit: that said, the name 'Progression' is interesting ... I wonder if it works by altering the flow of time in some way for the one being healed (accelerated? reversed?) ... if so your theory could be correct. But on the other hand, I think Sanderson has said something about how his healing all works via the Cognitive aspect of someone, which indicates that it's not time magic based healing imo.

I don't think that necessarily follows, Aleksiel, the trope of one race/nation being the only ones who remember some important truth (but perhaps in a distorted way) is quite common in fantasy. However I do think there's something more. Thunderclasts maybe? They seem like voidspren possessing stone, and there's been no mention of them possessing other substances - and two (that I recall) of them using stone.

You make a lot of really good points. If aluminium had the property of not being cut by shard blades, that's definitely how I'd see things going down. However, the fact that we haven't even had a passing mention of things like this (eg: one of the thought monologues by Dalinar about how powerful shardbearers are) makes me think that either aluminium doesn't have shard blade immunity or its potential hasn't been realized and explored since at least the last Desolation. Perhaps it will get that mention in a later book though. Or maybe some of the things you've described will go down - I'd like that, your description of the deployment issues and countermeasures sounded very cool.

I dunno if it's beyond the polite point for bumping this thread, but I really wanted to highlight this observation, because I think it's a fantastic one. I'm sure the Vorin obsession with symmetry won't turn out to be an arbitrary design decision by Brandon, but will have an in world reason behind it. On a semi related note, I'm curious about whether Cultivation and Honor's relationship will have something to do with the strong gender roles present on Roshar.

What if it was something like: Szeth: "Hey Stone Shaman, this dustspren seems to be behaving oddly and following me around, do you think maybe the Knights Radiant are coming back?" Stone Shaman: "That's ridiculous, Szeth, by the way you're truthless now." With the possible added motivation of breaking the new bond by forcing Szeth to use surges not affiliated with the order he was developing towards (via the honorblade) and to behave in a non-knightly manner (though that backfired since he went full lawmode).

Now that's a cool idea! I'm guessing Ruin's ability to alter text is because it requires only a very tiny amount of energy and because Preservation was in no state to revert/block any changes. Whether Odium can do the same would then depend on how much energy he is able to freely spend on Roshar, and how willing and able what's left of the other shards are to oppose that expenditure. I suspect that the way he's bound (the Oathpact) means he's only able to act on Roshar in very specific ways - altering writing may or may not be one of them, but it seems unlike Brandon to reuse an idea like that.

It's definitely possible that they just don't know about aluminium's properties, particularly if it's so expensive. It seems a bit unlikely to me that no one stumbled on the fact in all these years, but it's certainly possible. Assuming they did know about it's properties though, a thin layer of aluminium on the surface of armor would be a huge advantage against a Shardbearer. You rightly point out that it doesn't help with regular troops, nor with the abilities shardplate provides, but given that one of the only recognized tactics for bringing down a shardbearer is to mob him (against which the sweeping blows of a shardblade result in horrendous casualties), surely it would still be an incredible improvement over conventional armor. It would probably easily be scratched off by other troops or the shardbearer's fists etc, but it would still be a huge improvement over nothing. Like a bullet proof vest - lots of ways they're useless (getting shot in the head etc), but still save lives. I'm not sure how much access people (mainly brightlords) across Alethkar and Roshar as a whole have to Soulcasting. Could you point me in the right direction to find out more about this? Edit: And yet somehow we know that paintings are flammable haha. Aluminium jewelry seems to be a thing, if someone was wearing some when they got killed (or not killed since aluminium) by a shardblade it would reveal the properties. You're right though, aluminium being rare and expensive makes it less likely that it's been exposed to shardblades.