11thorderknight

That's actually an awesome observation!

With regard to Jasnah's Soulcasting in tWoK - remember, the fact that she isn't using a device is part of the Big Reveal of the book. Ergo, BS didn't have a choice; he had to write the Soulcasting scenes as conforming to the general expectation of mechanical Soulcasting, strictly from a meta perspective. He sort of had to work backwards here. The In-World explanation that makes the most sense, to me, is the fact that Jasnah is trying very hard to keep a secret. Shallan Soulcasting blood happens too early in the book to allow the secret to be given away; hence, it doesn't really matter what handwaving we have to do in order to justify it - it simply had to be written that way. My explanation would be that Shallan knows that garnet = blood, and subconsciously knew the "flavor" of Stormlight she inhaled; therefore, she gets blood. Also makes for a great segue to the suicide attempt. Alternatively, it could be that the associated Essence is the default state for Radiant Soulcasting, and Shallan doesn't know how do change the default. Might require more Stormlight to do so, or might just require a mental trick. Ether way, Shallan can't do it yet at that point. Regarding Jasnah calling for a garnet - if you think about it, the jig's already up at that point. Jasnah's not going to let Shallan die, so she makes an attempt to stick to the story, but in reality, a sphere could never fuel a mechanical Soulcaster - we're shown many times that the real devices require a large stone of a specific cut, installed into the device. She might manage to fool a poisoned Shallan (until she's feeling better) or the common people in the room, but to the eyes of a knowledgeable observer, the cover's blown at that point. With regard to cracking gemstones - mechanical Soulcasters do this, so Jasnah feels the need to periodically do so as well - publicly. Maybe she's learned to "suck" on a stone so hard that it snaps, or whatever. Anyway, she "knows", prior to Soulcasting the boulder, that she's "very likely" going to lose a valuable stone - why not take 2 seconds to swap out one or both of the other gems for another smokestone? It's implausible to believe that one of the three wealthiest women in the wealthiest kingdom on the planet wouldn't have a spare or two with her. And yet, the gemstone that's cracked from being over-drained still somehow has just enough juice to disappear the entire boulder? A bit on the coincidental side. Ditto for the street thugs; she's got enough Light in the smokestone for two of them, but just barely? And finally - what's the In-World reason that Jasnah "discovers" the "Soulcaster"? She obviously doesn't need the money, or the assassination attempts, and having been digging into records of the Recreance and the Desolations she must have come across hints of the various secret societies. The meta reason is obviously that Shallan needs to have a reason to seek her out, but the In-World reason, imho, is the reverse: Jasnah wants other potential Radiants to seek her out also. It's like a dog whistle to anyone else who has discovered Surgebinding abilities. Unfortunately, it's a dog whistle the Ghostbloods can hear as well.

I agree with all the above posts - there's something about the Recreance that we still don't understand fully. My point is that, the way the info was revealed by Mr. T, it seems like he expects it to break the new Radiants; that's the part that's a little hard to grasp. Here's a thought - what if the Surgebinding that caused the cataclysm on Ashyn wasn't a direct result, but rather somehow empowered Odium to Desolate Ashyn and forced the humans to flee? Odium then followed then, and the singers thought he was their god? In other words - what if Nale has been correct somehow, all along?

So, the mystery of the Recreance has supposedly been revealed...and it's kind of a letdown. I mean, sure, the characters might be surprised that they're not native to Roshar (although they shouldn't be, their own religion talks about them being "cast out" of the Tranquiline Halls) but the readers definitely aren't. And on top of that, most of the characters greet the news with a pretty "meh" response. Sure, some of the Windrunner squires are talking it through, but none of the main characters seem to really care much. Certainly, none are running out to throw down their Blades. On top of that, the details of why humans fled to Roshar are still very unclear, as is the reason Nale thought that new surgebinders could bring about another Desolation. Am I missing something here, or is a big piece of the puzzle still missing?

I might be slow on the pickup here, but why are we all assuming that Azure is Vivenna? I mean, sure, Vivenna is certainly a possible candidate, but that's just because she's our only other known character from Nalthis. And before someone mentions her hair changing color, I'd like to point out that any Returned with practice would be able to do the same thing.

...the Knights Radiant themselves. Evidence: 1. Jasnah's research, which led her to conclude that the parshmen were Voidbringers, was both correct and incomplete - they have capacity to undergo the transformation into various Voidforms, but do not necessarily have to. And in fact, we're now finding out that most of them are "regular people". It's even highly foreshadowed that one of them, Eshonai, is likely to become a Radiant herself. 2. The very first mention of the Voidbringers, in Szeth's POV prologue to WoK, references how briefly he can hold Stormlight, then states "it was said the Voidbringers could hold it in perfectly". 3. With each additional Oath, we see Radiants become more and more efficient in their use of Stormlight. Shallan, who is currently the farthest in her progression, is able to maintain a complex illusion for hours using "just a smidgen". The Radiants in Dalinar's flashbacks never leaked Stormlight. 4. Nale believes that surgebinders have the capacity to bring about the return of Desolations. 5. Some secret exists that caused nearly every Radiant to participate in a mass suicide/sprenocide when they discovered it. That secret still exists, and Taravangian believes that it would cause the new Radiants to act in much the same way as the old ones did. My conclusion: Nale is at least partly right; there is a direct link between surgebinders and Desolations, which the Radiants did not understand even during the height of their civilization. When this was discovered, they not only felt guilty, but betrayed by their spren, which caused them to participate in the Recreance.

I’m certain some will feel threatened by this record. Some few may feel liberated. Most will simply feel that it should not exist. I needed to write it anyway. I know that many women who read this will see it only as further proof that I am the godless heretic everyone claims. I can point to the moment when I decided for certain this record had to be written. I hung between realms, seeing into Shadesmar—the realm of the spren—and beyond. I thought that I was surely dead. Certainly, some who saw further than I did thought I had fallen. Oathbringer (in-world) - preface Note how the author states that "many women who read this", rather than "many people who read this". That distinction tells us the writer is a Vorin woman. The mention of Shadesmar and being a heretic certainly make Jasnah a prime candidate, but I think there's another very interesting possibility. Dalinar notices how Navani is writing her memoirs - what if they're not her memoirs, but a biography/history of Dalinar? For now, my money's on Navani.

I have a wild theory on this. We know that burning aluminum has the effect of "cleansing" the user of other investiture. We know that burning Duralumin flares the effect of the other metals way beyond what an allomancer would be able to otherwise achieve, thereby enhancing the effects. My theory is this: an individual who used Duralumin to enhance their aluminum will be able to burn away a hemalurgic spike - possibly without removing whatever attributes the spike provides. There's even an obvious plot point for this theory down the line: let's say a kandra obtains one spike that allows him to burn aluminum, and another to burn Duralumin. If he then burned both, he might be able to remove both spikes without losing his consciousness. He would still be a sentient kandra, but would no longer require spikes, and therefore not be subject to Harmony's direct influence. He also wouldn't have to have metal inside him, and since the world of Scadrial is rapidly approaching the modern era and the development of X-ray technology...this might soon become a very relevant plot point.

Great thread. I've commented on this subject before, but I think the main concept underlying the Surgebinding system is that there is no one definition of honor or what is honorable. Hence, each order has their own definition, and their definitions may very well oppose each other in certain circumstances. The obvious example is Lift, who is the stereotypical "thief with a heart of gold" vs. the Skybreakers (even if Nale represents a corrupt version of their code, I doubt the original Skybreakers would have been cool with breaking and entering in order to steal people's dinner). The episode of Jasnah vs. the muggers is another example. As Shallan states afterwards, every legal and philosophical code she read justified Jasnah's actions that night (for that matter, so does every legal and ethical code IRL, and police routinely conduct sting operations). And yet, Shallan couldn't quite shake the "ick factor" of that night, and clearly doesn't feel that Jasnah acted morally. This is despite demonstrating later on, in Words of Radiance, that she has no problem with killing in self-defense. So something about the pre-meditated nature of the encounter conflicts with the morals of the Lightweavers (or at least with Shallan's - it may well be that the Lightweavers as an Order did not have any particular code other than "be true to yourself"). And then there's Kaladin. His code is clearly much stricter than either Shallan's or Jasnah's in terms of how he is allowed to achieve his goals - for instance, I don't think Jasnah would have had any issue at all in letting an incompetent leader be assassinated if she thought it best for the nation that he go. Kaladin however, clearly has to defend Elhokar even when he dislikes and disapproves of him. Similarly, Dalinar feels compelled to work with Sadeas in order to unite Alethkar even when he knows Sadeas is untrustworthy; his nature as a Bondsmith won't allow him to create discord among his people. My point here is that one of the central themes of Stormlight Archive is going to be the philosophical question of: what is Honor? How do we define it? How do we reconcile differing definitions?

@Erunion - Yes, Rand tells Elayne that making an angreal from a seed takes months, and she will be weaker in the Power while doing so (he makes it sound like it's a gradual weakening, with a period at the end where she'll be either extremely weak or totally unable to channel) but he doesn't say whether she'll have any control of how long the process takes, or whether she can "partially" charge the seed, or whatnot. So, maybe it's possible that a channeler can make an angreal weaker than the max they could accomplish in order to speed up the process.

A couple of points, and a theory, regarding angreal... 1. There is WoB that angreal are NOT multiplicative, but additive. I forget the exact signing, but he stated that this was very clear in RJ's notes, particularly with regard to one specific character. My money is on this character being Moiraine after her stay in Finnland, and the angreal in question is Lanfear's tied-up-gymnasts bracelet. According to Moiraine herself, she can barely light a fire unaided, which, given how long she spent in Finnland, implies that she's been drained to as low as you can be. I'm therefore going to designate Moiraine as Level 1. (Note: I'm deliberately not taking Morgase into account, since I believe there's a qualitative difference between her and other female channelers. Someone like Sorilea, for instance, is very weak, but she can still channel at will with the strength she has, and can even form complex weaves such as Traveling even though she doesn't have the strength to make them work. Morgase, on the other hand, can't even reliably sense the Source, and when she can, she can't reliably touch it. Therefore, I'm calling her Level 0). Anyway...Moiraine then states that despite her weakness, she is "very strong" with the bracelet, because it's such a strong angreal, that it's almost a sa'angreal. She explicitly states she is stronger with it than she had been before being weakened. And pre-weakened Moiraine was quite strong indeed, certainly at least 10x as strong as weak Moiraine. So...if the weakest female channeler using the strongest angreal is "very strong"....how strong would the strongest female channeler (Lanfear) have been when she was using that same angreal? If there was a multiplicative effect, she would have been at least 10x her normal strength, and would have overpowered Rand instantly. Therefore, I think it's pretty clear that angreal are additive, rather than multiplicative. Additionally, in aMoL we learn a bit about how angreal are made. They require a Seed ter'angreal, that is then somehow charged by a channeler over time, in a process that temporarily drains the channeler of their channeling ability. My guess, then, is that the strength of the resulting angreal is directly proportional to the strength of the channeler who charges it. So, when Elayne finishes making hers, it will give whoever uses it a strength boost equal to Elayne's native strength. In Elayne's case, it would double her strength. If Nynaeve were to use it, however, she would think it's rather weak - it would make her stronger, but not twice as strong. If Moiraine used it she would be many times as strong - but the angreal's strength remains the same in all three cases. So, when Moiraine states that the bracelet is "almost a sa'angreal", I'm guessing she can tell that it was charged by a Lanfear-level channeler; someone who's as strong as a woman can possibly be.

I'm pretty sure it was stated somewhere that approximately 1% of the 3rd Age population could learn to channel, as opposed to the 2-3% during the Age of Legends. In terms of the number born with the spark though - the best guess we have is that in Seanchan, there were 3-4 sul'dam for every damane, meaning that between 20-25% of potential channelers were born with the spark.

My understanding is that the amount of Feruchemical charge in a metalmind is completely irrelevant when using it for Compounding. The Feruchemical charge, no matter how small or large, changes the Identity of the metal being burned so that it's Allomantic burn now creates a different effect from what it otherwise would have been. So, the amount of "energy" derived from Compounding is governed by Allomantic principles, not Feruchemical ones. Meaning, the Allomantic strength of the Compounder and the amount of the metal (but NOT the metal's charge) determine how much power is released. Typically, the amount of power is so great that it is not useable all at once, and most Compounders immediately store it in other metalminds for later use.

So...on Scadrial, we have two shards but three magic systems, one for each shard and one combo. What if we have the same thing on Roshar in terms of the God-spren: one for Honor, one for Cultivation, and one combo? I'm not including any of Odium's spren, because Surgebinding is not his magic system. This would give us maximum of three Bondsmiths, with each having a different spren but none tied to Odium.

Here's the thing about Shardplate - it doesn't really do anything other than what the Radiant can already do by holding Stormlight. Think about it; a surgebinder gets increased strength, speed, toughness, and regrowth, which are all features of Shardplate. Not coincidentally, Sharplate requires Stormlight to function. So you could argue that physical Shardplate is simply a cognitive manifestation of a Radiant's ability to use Stormlight, perfected.