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I don't think Vorin culture has the same concept of "last name" as we do. It's worth noting that the universality of last names is a modern innovation. Names like Kholin, Davar, and Stormblessed are not "last" names, but rather house names. As in, the names of noble houses associated with certain lands and titles. Ordinary darkeyes are not members of any noble house, so they just have a single name, their name given at birth. If it became important for some reason to disambiguate different people with the same name, then profession, town of origin, or father's name could all be used to clarify who you're talking about (these sorts of things are what eventually developed into most modern last names in our world).

I think this makes a lot of sense. Honor and Cultivation forced Odium to Invest in the system, and the only way for him to leave with his full strength would be to destroy it all. Assuming this is true: How did they force Odium to Invest?

So, I have some questions about Odium. I'm going to throw some questions out here, and add my own speculation and ideas. But this isn't a theory post - it is really just about thinking about some questions that are left unanswered after Oathbringer. 1) What originally brought Odium to the Rosharan system? The simple answer is that he was going around killing shards, and Honor and Cultivation were next on his list. But that by itself doesn't completely explain it - why did he target them? Did he find their combination particularly threatening? Did he just see it as a fight he could win? 2) What does Odium actually want? Our general understanding of Odium is that he is trying to kill other shards to consolidate his power. But I don't think it is entirely clear if he is planning to kill off all the other shards, or if he is only planning to kill off some of them. And even in killing other shards, what is it that Odium wants, exactly? Does he want to rule the whole cosmere uncontested? Not every shard seems to be driven to dominate everything, and seem more or less content running their own worlds. What exactly sets Odium apart? Also, in the more immediate term, what is Odium trying to achieve with the Desolations? Is it just Odium fulfilling his Intent? Or is it part of an escape plan? If it is part of an escape plan, how is it supposed to work exactly? Is he trying to cause enough damage that Honor's power will release him? How much does Odium's Intent limit his actions and ability to negotiate? Finally, why is Odium tied to his word? Is that just part of being a shard (something involving intention, maybe)? Or is Odium just lying about this and will break his word freely? (Taravangian seems to have reason to believe Odium will keep his word). 3) Did Honor and Cultivation plan their trap? Was their trap carefully planned out and premeditated, or is it something they improvised once Odium showed up? Did they know Odium was coming? Did they deliberately lure him to the Rosharan system? 4) What is actually imprisoning Odium? We have some sense that Odium is trapped in the Rosharan system, and Odium implied that it is Honor's power trapping him. Oddly, Odium does not seek to take advantage of Dalinar's naivete to get him to release him. Contrast this with (Mistborn spoilers) Is Odium truly trapped, or is it just that the cost of leaving would be too great for him to risk?

I am rereading Mistborn right now, and I got to this passage, where Vin burns one of Sazed's metalminds: I don't think we've fully grappled with what this means - using unkeyed metalminds, any Allomancer will be able to compound. That DRAMATICALLY increases the power of Mistings, provided they have access to unkeyed metalminds. Every gold Misting can compound healing, every steel Misting can compound speed, etc. Another important impact here is that it makes Allomancy a team sport. A Misting with the support of a powerful organization (perhaps the Set) would have a huge advantage over a Misting trying to operate on their own. It also makes previously useless Mistings useful all of a sudden, provided they can get the metalminds.

I agree, I think that hearing Evi's name while invested essentially "bootstrapped" the healing process. Hearing the name created a very brief moment where Dalinar knew the name. Normally the name is wiped out before it matters, but that moment was enough for the Stormlight to find the damage and start healing.

My theory is that the unique circumstance was hearing the name while being invested by Stormlight. When he heard the name, it briefly awoke those memories, and that was enough to provoke the Stormlight to begin the healing process (before the Old Magic could kick in to do its thing). Alternatively, Stormlight interferes with the Old Magic, and he isn't healed at all. In this scenario, it is possible the memories slip away when he is no longer invested with Stormlight.

If it is the case the void forms are relatively uncommon, it might very well be the case that the Battle of Narak will turn out to have been even more important than it already seems. Perhaps Odium invested a significant part of his power in that army, and losing them was fairly costly, even though they succeeded at Odium's primary goal.

This theory has two pieces. I think both of them have been partially introduced by others, but I haven't seen the pieces put together in this way yet (if I missed it, I'm sorry, I searched the forums as best I could but it is entirely possible I missed something). Also, I think this theory has some issues, which I will bring up at the end, but I still want to put it out there as an interesting thought (and who knows - maybe someone can help me resolve the issues). First off, I think that the source of Taravangian's variance in capabilities and behavior come from his consciousness moving in some way between the Cognitive and Spiritual realms. When his consciousness is primarily in the cognitive realm, he becomes very logical and rational (in a limited sense) but he loses his spiritual connection to others. According to this WoB, there is nothing inherent to intelligence that makes you less empathetic - this correlation is unique to Taravangian: The second part of the theory is, in my opinion, the more interesting piece, although it relies on the first part. I think that on the night of the Diagram, Taravangian was not maximally pulled into the Cognitive Realm. Instead, I think he was pulled in the opposite way into the Spiritual Realm. I think he was pulled in so far that he broke through to the point that he could easily see into the future and look at the web of possibilities spread out before him, similar to what happened in Hero of Ages when This would explain why the event seems so spectacularly improbable from the perspective of raw intelligence; it wasn't brought about by intelligence, but instead by genuine visions of the future. Taravangian thinks the Diagram is a product of intelligence because he is biased to assume that intelligence is what matters. It seems like his overall nature is to be cold and calculating, even on a "normal" day. It wouldn't occur to Taravangian that there might be more power in spiritual connection than in raw intelligence. I think this also might explain the overall cryptic, incoherent nature of the Diagram. It wasn't the result of a cold, rational mind, but rather of a rush of foresight. The biggest issue with this theory, IMO is the overall "cold" or "clinical" nature of the messages we've seen. That seems characteristic of his personality when his spiritual connection wanes, not when it is at it's highest. I honestly don't have a good rebuttal for this right now. Maybe at a certain point of spiritual awareness, something like your "true" personality comes out? It could also be that once Taravangian became equally connected to everything, his natural spiritual empathy for particular individuals went away, leading to this apparent coldness. Bonus theory: the language he "invented" is actually an ancient language used by whoever lived in that spot many millennia ago (maybe the Parshendi), and his extreme levels of spiritual connection made it dominate his mind.

At one of the signings at the Dragonsteel booth, Brandon spontaneously wrote something in the copy of The Emperor's Soul I had just purchased. The interaction itself was a little weird, partially due to my own minor freakout (it was my first time meeting him). He had been moving people through the line pretty quickly, so I assumed I wouldn't have a chance to ask a question, but when he got to me he specifically asked if I wanted to ask him anything (maybe this was because I was wearing a Bridge Four shirt?). I was completely unprepared and started fishing for which of the questions in my list I wanted to ask, but while I was stammering he just wrote something in the book and handed it to me. I was really surprised at that point so I just thanked him and walked away. Anyway, what he wrote in my copy of The Emperor's Soul was "I know your soul..." He specifically made sure to point out that it was a quote from the book. The full passage from the book is this: I'm not sure exactly what Brandon meant by putting this in my book. It seems to me like he might have wanted to call attention to this passage as realmatically significant, but I am still a little flustered by the whole incident.

I think you're overstating the nature of the danger from Harmony's position. We know that powerful forces are working to limit his knowledge. We also don't really have a super clear idea of Harmony's limits when it comes to gathering info. We know, based on the BoM epilogue, that there is a powerful force bent on destroying intelligent life on Scadrial. We only know that because we saw a private moment between two very secretive characters - it's not crazy that Harmony simply has no way of knowing what he's actually facing. The Set by itself is definitely getting up to some bad stuff, but they're also pushing technology forward. Harmony might be deliberately pursuing a strategy of mitigating some of the worst harms of the Set while still allowing them to operate and do their thing. Harmony may also feel that conflict between Elendel and the other cities is inevitable and perhaps even desirable. Harmony presumably knows at this point that another entity like himself is interfering with Scadrial. But he may not know the extent of that influence, and almost certainly doesn't know to what purpose his counterpart is acting. Taking a "wait and see" approach seems reasonable, since drastic action could potentially make the situation far worse or risk exposing himself in dangerous ways.

I don't think the Diagram comes directly from a Shard's intentional influence. I think it's more like the result of his request to the Nightwatcher, who follows certain rules that we don't fully understand. I don't think a Shard specifically decided to give T this specific ability - I think it was the logical outcome of what he asked for based on the Nightwatcher's rules. My pet theory about T's ability is that his consciousness is being dragged between the cognitive realm and the spiritual realm. When he is pulled towards the cognitive realm, he loses his spiritual connection to other people, and with it his ability to empathize. When he is pulled towards the spiritual realm, his connection to others increases dramatically. I also think that the Diagram was not the result of high intelligence. Instead, it was the result of being pulled so far into the spiritual realm that he could see the web of the future unfolding. Brandon has said that if one sees deeply enough into the spiritual realm, there's an "I see the stars!" sort of effect where the person undergoes some serious revelations. This is similar to something that happens in Hero of Ages I think T saw the future, but was totally disconnected from the cognitive realm when it happened, hence his wild, somewhat incoherent behavior and total lack of memory.

An interesting theory would be that Honor and Cultivation originally intended to settle on Braize, or a different Rosharan planet, and brought humans with them (or created humans there using their powers), but then Odium forced them to run away for one reason or another. Since Roshar was already settled by the Listeners, and has massive deadly storms that make human life somewhat more difficult, it seems reasonable to me that Honor and Cultivation might not have preferred to settle there at first. Alternate theory: Honor likes the storms but Cultivation doesn't, so they settle on different planets in the same system. That lets them continue seeing each other while each having their own world. Cultivation comes to Roshar only once Odium ruins her planet.

I hadn't thought about the Autonomy angle, but it seems obvious now. It might just be thematic, but the link to Autonomy is clearly there.

I propose a tweak for this one's interpretation: "All is withdrawn for me. I stand against the one who saved my life. I protect the one who killed my promises. I raise my hand. The storm responds." I think the one who saved his life is Moash, and the one who killed his promises is Elhokar. Kaladin's number one failed promise was his failure to save Tien, something which Elhokar is ultimately at fault for.

I'm not a big graphic novel fan personally, but I'm going to get it so I can make my other friends read it (they're comics people and getting them to read prose novels is like pulling teeth sometimes). I'm hoping its good enough to tease them into wanting to read the rest of the cosmere. Then I'll have new people to bore with long bouts of cosmere speculation.