This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 

Navani's Notebook - Part I

A page from Navani’s Notebook! Finally! I love deciphering these pages and looking at the beautiful sprengineering sketches.

The contents of this page are pretty obvious from the chapter we’ve just read, so before going through the text I’ll just appreciate the art for a moment. The oven looks elegant, especially with its little exhaust attractor at the top. Such a neat aesthetic. I wonder what happens with the smoke and gasses when they’re done with it? How/where do they empty the collected exhaust?

The heating fabrial, on the other hand, is quite different from how I imagined it. The cage is much less prominent than I expected, and the gem itself far larger. That aluminum stopper looks like a cork more than anything. In black and white, with the gem’s facets deemphasized, it doesn’t have quite the inherent beauty that I think must be a general feature of most fabrials. Imagining it as a red ruby, glowing from within with a flickering flamespren flitting about, though, conjures the magic back into it.

Those flamespren do seem incredibly individualized in form and posture and apparent temperament. The two facing each other at the bottom of the page really embody different aspects of flame, and I’m here for it. The one in mink shape is fun, too.

Alright, into the meat of things. Sprengineering ahoy!

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The spren can be convinced to stay in the physical realm and 
enter the fabrial by choice.

Aside, I gotta say that this women’s script is coming back to me way easier than I thought it would I remember struggling with reading the first few notebook pages in Rhythm quite a bit more than I have with this one so far. Probably helps that I have strong expectations about what the text will say, but these letters are sticking in my brain remarkably well after however many years it’s been.

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A proffered hot coal and the right tone calms it and keeps it from dissipating.

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They seem drawn to many of the same 
things we are  Recognition
Identity  Belonging

Okay, “drawn” gave me some trouble. Took me a bit to figure out the W there.
I like the analogies they are drawing between spren and humans in a psychological sense. Personifying the spren will help to engender respect and (hopefully) care.
(Obligatory reminder that Roshar has had a robust slave economy for centuries, up until literally last year. So just because spren are seen as people doesn’t guarantee anything.)

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We are early in this development 
Sometimes modern techniques are still
required

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The spren take on unique traits as we see them as individuals

 Sometimes the women’s script just looks beautiful. I love the way that word “individuals” appears on the page. Very elegant. On that note, I like the way the alethi notations here complement the artwork. Great job to the illustrators!

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Flare of flamespren
Gust of windspren
Affliction? of painspren
This seems like it could get out of control quickly.

Yes, collective nouns are like that. A few determined by these scientists should be promulgated, but I expect most to arise organically as people adopt their own. Most of ours come from inventive authors that somehow gained popularity, and I rather think that’s how most things will go. 
Shallan better coin her “inspiration of creationspren” for the armor cheerleaders before someone else names them.

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Will this create a strain of more 
malleable flamespren? Can we
encourage them to multiply?

That’s an excellent question. You can’t really breed spren, but if you train these ones will other baseline flamespren start to take on more of those characteristics as people’s perception shifts? Or if you have more flame and heat in the world, do you engender the creation of more flamespren? If they do multiply in your hands, are they spontaneously generating, or converting from an existing population, or something else entirely? 
Man, if it wasn’t for this whole apocalypse thing, these scientists would be having the time of their lives. Maybe they still are, with patrons like Navani guiding and protecting them.