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A long long time ago, when Way of Kings was just released I remember reading Brandon's commentary somewhere about co-existence of humans and parshmen on Roshar as a parallel to humans and Neanderthals. Since that quote, I've essentially imagined parshmen and the Parshendi as the Neanderthals of Roshar. I think, given the evidence, I can buy a version of Blightsong's theory. The Singers' bonds with Roshar spren are fairly ancient, because these bonds grant them adaptations that other, native Rosharan species receive. So, potentially, the ancestors of the Singers could also be from a different planet, but brought to Roshar in pre-Shattering time.

Looking back, I think I disliked it because it was expressed in a way similar to how some other, certifiably incorrect, theories were expressed. "Here, I noticed this little thing, and I am going to claim that it has a HUUUGE importance". Except, that in this case, people advancing the theory were most likely correct.

I personally was not a big fan of this idea, but at this point it is probably fruitless to come up with alternatives - the hints in this book have been pretty strong.

Someone needs to alert Peter.

I suggest that someone asks Brandon whether Renarin has spoken the Ideals of the Truthwatchers.

The boots are also mentioned explicitly as part of her attire before she starts going Elsecaller on the enemy.

Kelek's Breath - you have "The Biggest Blackest Thorn" there!!! If you are accepting additional card suggestions: Also, something about Lift's food choices, and two-armed Herdazians.

Renarin does not have a gemheart. Neither does his spren persistently reside there. Glys goes for it because of the mechanics of bonds with singers, which takes him in the area of Renarin's heart. But nothing in the fragments you are quoting has even the slightest hint that Renarin has a gemheart.

I am blaming myself for not seeing this topic earlier.... Yet, as many upvotes as I gave on my climb through these ~120 messages, I think there are some things about Jasnah in Oathbringer (and in the entire Stormlight Archive) that bear additional repetition and stress. First and foremost, she is my favorite character, by a mile. In my, very personal opinion, in Oathbringer, she steals nearly every scene she is. In fact, some of the things the OP is blaming her for, in my opinion, are actually moments of awesome. Let's have a quick go at it. Jasnah and the Heralds... It seems like a lot of people concentrate on "And kill them" part of Jasnah's suggestion. Yet, the "We need to find Heralds" part of it is actually brilliant, and none of the other people in the room have thought of this before. The logic here is clear. Jasnah is actually not suggesting a sacrifice of some random people (or even of some specific mundane people). She is suggesting that Dalinar and Co. find the people who entered an Oathpact with Honor and ask them to do the job they agreed to do. This is very different than other examples of people willing to sacrifice other people. It is even more interesting that this suggestion comes from the heretic in the room (although, at this point the notion of a heretic is pretty meaningless to everyone except for the Vorin religious hierarchy), rather than from the devout Vorins taught that Heralds protect them from Desolations. I mean, she literally just asks that the Vorins ask their Prophets to do what they are supposed to. Jasnah and Kaladin... Brandon uses the scene to highlight the differences in how various Orders of Knights Radiant approach the same problems. This is important, because up until recently we've been getting a somewhat skewed image of who the Knights Radiant are. In the scene we had a quintessential Windrunner and a quintessential Elsecaller air out their reasoning. Seeing Knights Radiant passionately disagree and continue working together is important, and this is exactly how this scene pans out. Everyone seems to forget that in addition to "bridgeman", and "woman are you insane", we also had a "I'll get some skyeels for you to cuddle with" and "I will happily cuddle with skyeels if your dudes spend some useful time immitating them" exchange. Jasnah is right. rust needs to be done, and Kaladin needs to see to his responsibilities. Kaladin actually sees it and gives her respect at the end. I do not see this exchange as problematic at all. I see the entire sequence, from the moment Jasnah takes the discussion over with her suggestion to find Heralds, to the end of the meeting, as a philosophical argument. Jasnah and Shallan. Here things are simple and a lot of people have called it. Shallan is being extremely self-centered, and neglectful. Jasnah actually does her homework on Shallan (!), and continues her education. Jasnah and compassion. I cannot understand what the argument is even about. Reread the WoR Prologue. Reread any pre-Thaylen City Jasnah viewpoint. What you see there is in a stark contrast with Shallan's view of Jasnah. What we see in Jasnah's POVs (including the apocryphal one) is someone absolutely terrified about what is coming and feeling a huge burden of responsibility, and as of late - also of guilt and frustration that all her time spent preparing for what has come is, in her mind, completely wasted. We see a consciousness of a person who feels a huge burden of responsibility. Some of this may be arrogance (Jasnah feels that she is the one who should be best equipped to face this responsibility), but she is also not wrong. Jasnah spends her entire viewpoints in an internal monologue and conversations with Ivory (who is quietly, a truly awesome spren) in constant doubt of herself and her actions and their consequences. I cannot believe this is not apparent to anyone reading her POVs. This, btw, makes her even more awesome. Jasnah embodies the first attribute of the Elsecallers from the very beginning. But in Oathbringer we finally see that she also embraces the second attribute, Caring. I've said elsewhere, I suspect that the Second and Third Ideal of Elsecallers is something like "I will be the voice of reason", and an extension of it (in the same way in which the Third Ideal of Windrunners extends and strengthens their Second Ideal), but that the Fourth Ideal, which I do not doubt Jasnah has already spoken, is something like "I will not lose empathy" or "I will not lose my compassion" (my other reason for thinking about it is because for story-building reasons a person who combines intelligence AND compassion needs to be contrasted with Taravangian, who alternates them, and Jasnah fits the bill perfectly as such a contrast).

I also decided that Chapter 1 needs one more self-explanatory Grumpy Cat.

Jasnah's first POV in the book makes it clear that she knows The Secret That Broke The Knights Radiant (tm). Ivory makes a note that unlike previous KRs, Jasnah is not going to abandon him because she knows The Secret. Jasnah agrees. The information appears to have come from the highspren Jasnah has visited with in Shadesmar. But agree on the larger point. Jasnah's new knowledge, whatever it is, has not been relevant to the events in the book. My guesses are two-fold. Looking at it from the meta point of view: Jasnah is still not a core protagonist - her role appears to be growing as the books progress (scheduled for book 10 revelations, which means that the final Avalanche in the Stormlight Archive, hopefully will feature her prominently). Brandon needed her around for plot movement reasons (even in her subdued role, she still manages to steal most of the scenes she is in, and badass her way through research, fine prose, and warfare), but he did not need her as the Deus Ex Machina for the book. Looking at this from the in-world perspective, Jasnah, is first and foremost, a scholar - an historian, in fact - the differences between her brand of scholarship and Navani's have been observed. She pursues understanding of the past for the purpose of illuminating the future. She has learned a lot about the past. But she has also - in WoR epilogue came to a realization that her knowledge may not be as useful and applicable to the True Desolation as she hoped it would be. Her POVs (including the apocryphal one) illustrate that behind the facade she puts in is a very cautious, often unsure of and doubting herself, and scared deep down person. Scared, because she knows too much and understands too much, perhaps. Scared because she sees looming problems for which she does not know the solution. Scared because things she spent her entire life studying in order to be prepared this this are no longer of any help. As long as she is in this mindset, I think she is bound to keep some things to herself. As the consequence, I think, it is reasonable to assume that some of the things she found out while traversing Shadesmar will become relevant in Books 4 and 5. But I do want to know what Wit told her. Also, what Wit was interested to learn from her.

Eshonai, watching parshmen:

As I mentioned - I am less certain about it than when I originally wrote that sentence (and I mentioned it in a few other places), but I still think of this as a very likely scenario. Basically, the new Order of Willshapers are the new Listeners of the singers.

To my mind, The Last Legion (i.e., the ancestors of the Listeners/Parshendi) escaped before Melishi did the Bondsmith voodoo that turned other singers into slaveform. I read the previous lines about destroying 2000 (ex)Knights Radiant as an attack by a human force - perhaps the very ones we see in Feverstone Keep taking up the dead blades. As to the "missing" order, I am pretty certain these were Skybreakers. I understand the problem with subterfuge as a defining term for them (Willshapers and Edgedancers and probably better at subterfuge) but based on what I know about the Skybreakers, they do seem more likely than other orders to go against the rest - their Oaths are about following external, rather than internal Ideals, and the Secret That Broke The Knights Radiant (tm) may have had less sway with them. They could also consider the other orders as essentially lawbreakers, and therefore would not have a problem betraying them to the attackers.

Mother's behavior makes plenty of sense now. It is sort of weird that all sorts of secret societies descended upon Davar estate and hit more than half of the family members: mom and Heralan to Skybreakers, pops - to Ghostbloods, Shallan herself - well eventually ghostbloods, by way of bonding a cryptic. We need one of her brothers to join the Diagram, one - Sons of Honor, and one - 17th Shard, and the Davar family is now a microcosm of Cosmere (microcosmere?)