Rlain

I just find it odd that Hoid didn't mention it "slinking away" or anything after it's ruse was discovered. It's entirely possible that's just what happened, but with the whole building going on high alert when the ship started immobilizing the awakened soldiers, it just seems odd that the lackey wasn't still around to participate. Either it was skilled enough at lightweaving that it was able to mimic charlie or Riina set the lightweaving and dismissed it. Either way, this creature was a tool of hers who was self aware enough to attempt political subterfuge and covert operations. Why toss aside a useful tool like that when there is so much commotion going on? It might just be a quirk in the storytelling, but it feels off to me that a character was introduced and was present in the room where the action was taking place, and it leaving wasn't noticed by anyone. That being said, I also don't have another explanation for it.

A notable difference between the sands and the spores is that the sands appear able to form the luhel bond before receiving an offering. So it's possible that the transactional nature of spores is part of their corrupted or altered nature that makes them different from aether based magic in other places.

As a follow up question: where did it go after Tress discovered it's deception. Tress stormed back into Riina's command center, denying that the creature was charlie, the lightweaving was dropped revealing the reptilian creature and then Tress confronts Riina. But what does the reptile creature do at this point? Hoid doesn't mention it leaving the room. Tress doesn't mention it again. Riina doesn't consider it during her calculations about whether or not to fight the crew when they're all there. So..... Where did it go?

Were the fused all originally singers? We know that the regals are formed by the singers accepting powerful spren of odium into their gemhearts. But the Fused are formed of singers accepting the souls of the Fused into their gemhearts. But here's the thing: We don't know the original species of those Fused. In particular, I'm rereading Odium's conversation with Dalinar and when Odium is talking about what he gets if he wins he says "You will give your soul to me....You will join the Fused" [ROW p1177]. The fact that he says Dalinar will join the fused instead of saying Dalinar will lead the fused or something similar feels like it may be hinting that the souls that are the Fused may not need to be Singer in origin. In particular, is there any reason we know of why they couldn't be Humans whose souls have become bound to Odium and are then hosted in a Singer's body. It feels a little out there, but it feels like it's within the realm of possibility. Am I missing something obvious?

Oh wow. I wonder if they have some sense of when important events are going to happen, or if they were just intrigued by the idea of an alliance between the Parshendi and the Alethi.

In the opening chapter to WOK, Szeth is at the feast to assassinate Gavilar and comes across a beggar in the beggar's feast who says the characteristic "Have you seen me?" of Jezrien. Also, just for fun, Sanderson included a note about how there were only statues of nine of the ten heralds and that Shalash (Ash) is conspicuously missing. I love these little tidbits found upon rereading.

One of the Ardents during an interlude chapter mentions that he has a strict deadline from his patron for the translation of a certain passage of dawnchant. I think this unnamed patron might be King Taravangian. I don't have any hard evidence for this, but it seems to fit, since Taravangian uses the translation of the dawnchant passage about the voidbringers as one piece of his many part attack on Dalinar.

I'm curious if anyone has thought into the following ideas or has any evidence for or against them: Is there an intentional analogy between the Lifeless and the Shardblades? If so, does it speak to a similar nature in Realmatic Theory? We know that the Lifeless are the reanimated corpses of dead humans, sustained by an ichor and they have some small amount of cognitive function that enables them to obey orders better than the average awakened object in the shape of a person (though this could be because they are a person down to their internal organs and the rules of Awakening care about how similar you are to the object that you are representing when being awakened). Maya (Adolin's Shardblade) behaved much like a Liveless when they were in Shadesmar. She would stand around and follow Adolin, but it wasn't able to really act on her own volition (except for the one time that Maya did do so). They are both the result of some form of severing of a connection between realms, and a piece remaining. The Shardblades were the result of a severing of the Nahel bond Shardblades and the original Knights Radiant: Are the original spren that were bonded to the Knights Radiant trapped in the gemstones of the Shardblades? This might explain why the Stormfather is so adamant not to be manifested as a sword. He doesn't want to risk being trapped in a Shardblade when Dalinar inevitably breaks his oaths and fails like the Radiants of old. In addition, we know that two spren can occupy the same gemheart, as seen with Venli and her Spren. If there is a spren in the gemstone on the blade, can a second one be trapped in it? Were all Shardblades the result of old Radiants abandoning their oaths? It seems like there are too few Shardblades in the world for the number of Knights Radiant that there should have been. How do the timelines of the Nine Heralds choosing not to return to damnation and the knights radiant slowly abandoning their oaths relate to each other? Did the Knights Radiant abandon their oaths before the Nine found the loophole in theirs? Or did the Nine find the loophole, and then over time the Knights Radiant abandoned their oaths? Or did the Knights Radiant begin abandoning their oaths and then at some point during the recreance, the Nine wriggled out of theirs? Was one of these events influenced by the other? The Stormfather implies that the Knights Radiant abandoned their oaths after finding out that Humans were invaders on Roshar and gave up their powers out of some combination of not being able to perform their duties with that knowledge and a desire not to destroy Roshar like they destroyed their original planet. But this doesn't make sense to me completely. There were 10 orders of Knights Radiant, and only one survived this knowledge at all? Unless the Skybreakers turned on the other Knights Radiant and fought to destroy them, I don't see how all 9 other orders could have fallen completely due to this knowledge. Especially since it seems like our current Radiants are going to try to find a way to reconcile this information with their Oaths and most likely some of them will succeed. Is Odium or one of his Unmade able to alter the messages that are received via spanreed? On Scadrial, a Shard was able to alter the text that is written on non-metal. Is it possible for Odium to perform a Man-In-The-Middle attack and act as a Proxy Server that listens to each of their messages and lets them through, but with slight alterations? For instance, when Dalinar is talking to the Azish for the first time, he sends a message about this being a time for them to work together and the Azish responded with a message about how the death of King Gavilar was tragic and forms a bond between their peoples. Dalinar comments that it "feels like they are having two completely different conversations". Which could be because of politics. Or it could be because they actually were having two, very slightly different conversations. Are there any other instances that would imply this to be the case? If not, then I don't think the theory holds water right now. If the Unmade are the reason for the Alethi Thrill, then is there a similar Unmade for the other kingdoms that explain their particular obsessions? The Azish are obsessed with bureaucracy. The Thaylens worship the Passions, though this is a weak example at best. There are probably other examples that I haven't noticed. If the Thrill is the cause of the Alethi prowess on the battlefield, and is present in so many of Danilar's fights, how is it possible that the Unmade move around? The members of the Diagram talk about getting access to the Death Rattles again as they set up surgeons in the city that the Unmade causing them has moved to. The Thrill recedes from Dalinar on the Shattered Plains, but comes back in full force when in Thaylen city because the Unmade was present. But it couldn't be possible for a single Unmade to be in two places at once. So I feel like the Alethi would have noticed that only at some times was the Thrill present during a fight and not at other times. But we haven't really seen an indication of this other than from Dalinar on the Shattered Plains. And other Alethi appear to have still been able to feel the Thrill then. In addition, during Dalinar's flashbacks, he mentions that the energy he feels when in Shardplate feels similar to the Thrill. Is there a connection between these we haven't explored yet? Would it be possible to trap a spren in the gemstones on a Shardplate? We know that spren can be drawn in with something they love and be trapped at that moment. Would it be possible to trap it in that moment inside the gemstones of a Shardplate? If so, would anything different happen? The third, not quite shard? The Stormfather is a reflection of Honor and the Nightwatcher is the reflection of Cultivation. And we know that there is a third sibling who the Stormfather warns Dalinar to stay away from because humans have "Hurt her enough". Who is this? I was thinking it might be a reflection of Odium, but that seems dubious, even if there would be symmetry with each one being a reflection of one of the Shards. Perhaps it is a second reflection of Honor or Cultivation, but I'm not sure that Honor could have made two of these. Cultivation may have been able to. Maybe it's a reflection of another Shard alltogether. Or maybe it's a reflection formed from Honor and Cultivation together. A "child" formed from their joint wills to be more than either of them could have been alone. Honorable Cultivation?

True. That places their original lifespans somewhere between the first humans landing on Roshar and the first Desolation. They could have been part of the first humans to arrive on Roshar, or they could have been their descendants. Thanks for the input.

Would you mind elaborating? I was under the impression that you could collapse the superposition of one of the entangled particles and have it instantaneously collapse the waveform of the other. Would this not be information that was transmitted faster than the speed of light?

Unhinged, that is really cool to know. Thank you for the info.

One other thing I just found: Sanderson says there is a slight relationship between investiture and magnetism: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171-oathbringer-release-party/#e8182 So I think it safe to say that investiture gives off an ElectroMagnetic field. Or perhaps it's an Investo-Magnetic field.

Based on my rudimentary knowledge of Physics (University level, but no official training in Quantum, and several YouTube videos on the subject), that is a current phenomenon in Quantum Mechanics. There's a great MinutePhysics video on it. I was unaware that quantum entanglement was an inspiration for spanreeds. Since that's the case, then I think it very likely that spanreeds are not limited by the speed of light. Thanks!

I found a WoB that Nightblood's Sheath is made of Aluminum: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171-oathbringer-release-party/#e8162 I find this very interesting for the following reasons. Nightblood's sheath is able to block Nightblood's consumption of the investiture of the person who is wielding it. We know from Mistborn that Aluminum is an allomantically inert metal and can also block pushing and pulling on emotions, and it is plausible that it could actually make it so you could not sense someone burning metals inside a box made entirely of Aluminum (though I don't have confirmation on that). The Fused are able to locate uses of investiture like spanreeds and Kaladin's small lashing of the rock that he does to get their attention, but strangely not things like summoning a shardblade or lightweaving. Azure has a soulcaster that is being used underground in a bunker lined with sheets of metal that block the Fused from being able to sense the fabrial being used. In our world, aluminum is a conductor is really high quality. It is used to create ElectroMagnetic Screening systems, which offer shielding from ElectroMagnetic waves. http://www.aluminiumdesign.net/why-aluminium/properties-of-aluminium/ I think that the metal lining that bunker is Aluminum, which is both an Allomantically inert metal and a metal that can block Nightblood's investiture draining. It would stand to reason that it is in fact a metal that can block all forms of investiture related sensation. So Nightblood can't feed on investiture when in his sheath because he can't sense it and the Fused can't locate the bunker because they can't sense it. This has a couple potential implications: Nightblood uses some kind of investiture sense like Bronze to be able to locate objects that have investiture in them. Unlike Bronze, this picks up on all forms of investiture, not just Allomantic uses, and is able to pick up on inert forms of investiture (investiture that isn't actively being used to change something, like a person's BioChromatic Breath). The Fused are using an investiture sensing, not a Spren sensing. Investiture usage may actually give off an ElectroMagnetic field, since it is able to be blocked by Aluminum.

I'm wondering how much knowledge the Heralds had of the Cosmere and when they actually came into existence. There are some conflicting pieces of information that I could use other people's opinions on. 1) Hoid is asked if he is a Herald and he replies that he is much more ancient than the Heralds. 2) The Heralds appear to all be Humans, a species that came to Roshar from another planet. 3) The humans who came to Roshar worshipped Odium and at some point later changed to worshiping Honor. 4) When Jezrien is killed by Moash, one of the other Radiants cries out "Oh Adonalsium! What has happened?". So I'm trying to figure out what the Heralds's knowledge of Realmatic theory and the shattering of Adonalsium was. They appear to know that Adonalsium existed at one point, but this appears to be knowledge that is not known to humans in general. If they are descendants of the original humans who came to Roshar, when did they learn of Adonalsium? Do the Heralds actually worship Honor, or did they ever worship honor? We know that Nin is the only Herald who ever actually joined his own Knights Radiants Order, so the others may not have ever even aligned with Honor at all. But then who were the Heralds? I know we'll learn much of this in books 6-10, which is when we'll get a lot of info about the Heralds. But I'm curious if anyone has some fun theories about it now.