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Today I got a lego dragon for less than twenty dollars. Faith in humanity: restored.

Exactly. I'll Holdem still while you do the stabbing .

Tldr; any Shard can give access to Surgebinding and that means Renarin is the most powerful mortal in the Cosmere (and now Rlain too) This is my first post here after recently and very heavily falling down the rabbit hole of the Cosmere after a friend recommended the books. Apologies if my ideas/theory are old hat or well-trodden. Along with being my favourite (mostly) non-viewpoint character, I can’t help but think there is something very important about Renarin and what he represents. We’ve known for a while that there is something “off” about his powers and this has been treated with suspicion by other characters in the story, to the point where Jasnah was prepared to execute her cousin. My argument here is that far from being “off”, Renarin’s powers are what Rosharan Surgebinding can be at its full potential. The theory relies on a few assumptions and assertions: 1) Odium is one sixteenth of God’s power. As such, it is neither “good” or “evil”, but simply a force in the universe. We think of Odium as being the “bad guy”. He does indeed seem pretty unpleasant: cruel, capricious, power-hungry and arrogant but I suspect this is more to do with Rayse than Odium itself. Sazed/Harmony thinks that it is the power that wishes to destroy. Hoid thinks differently. As much as I love Sazed (and in most debates I’d side with him) if it’s an argument against Hoid, I think Hoid might be in the right. We can see when Taravangian takes up Odium that he is able to consider the urges of the power in a different way. Cultivation also seems to think the right Vessel would be able to contain this force. Hoid tells us that Rayse was always a pretty bad guy. 2) Combining more Shards with Odium will temper its destructive Intent and create something different and almost certainly better. We know that the combination of Shards is possible (see Sazed/Harmony). As Frost tells us in the Second Letter; “He bears the weight of God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context.” Giving context to this hatred will allow it to be channelled into something more productive. We can see the combination of Stormlight and Voidlight gives Warlight. There’s an assumption that if you were to combine Odium and Honor would get a new Shard called War (as Ruin and Preservation became Harmony). Many theorise that Dalinar will ascend to become this Shard at some point in our story. 3) Odium is as much a part of Roshar as Honor and Cultivation. We know that Roshar pre-dates the Shattering, so the Investiture of the planet arrived when Honor and Cultivation settled there. Odium has now been part of the Rosharan system for millenia, it’s reasonable to assume it’s Investiture has now saturated the place to enough of an extent that it is comparable to that of Honor and Cultivation. We can see this in the Singers’ use of Rhythms, they can attune to the Rhythms of Odium. Given that Roshar’s natives can attune to these Rhythms, we can be sure Odium is pretty much embedded in the planet. 4) Surgebinding and Voidbinding are two names of the same thing There is a thread on this forum about Division being Odium’s “truest surge” and one of the first objections was that Odium doesn’t have surges, he has Voidbinding. I found this point fairly meaningless. It seems obvious to me that the processes of Surgebinding and Voidbinding are the same process channelled through different Shards. The “surges” are described as the fundamental forces of the Cosmere which individuals can access through a splinter of a Shard (spren). R-Odium tells Dalinar he is preparing for “the [war] that will begin when the gods of other worlds discover the strength of Surgebinding” and earlier says that he is planning for combat with those that are “not nearly as well trained”. The implication of these two statements is that Surgebidng is available via any of the Shards. All they need to do is create spren of themselves and allow mortals in their domains to bond them. Let’s call this kind of magic “Investbinding”. The Knights Radiant are Investbinders who access the Surges through some combination of Honor and Cultivation in varying degrees. The Fused are Investbinders who access the Surges only through Odium. - So back to Renarin. We know Glys has been “Enlightened” by Sja-Anat. Enlightenment has a lot of meanings in Western culture, a whole philosophical movement is named after it. But if we take the literal meaning, “to make luminous”, in other words, to give Light; this might shed light (get it?) on what is going on. Glys has been granted access to Odium’s Light, in other words, Glys can allow Renarin to Investbind through Honor, Cultivation and Odium. I suspect there is a reason it was a Mistspren that was the first to do this. Truthwatchers are the mirror to Bondsmiths in the Surgebinding chart, i.e. furthest from Adhesion or Honor’s “truest surge”. It would be a spren that had the least influence from Honor that would be prepared to consider allowing Odium’s Light in. There are several implications if this theory is true, which I’ll outline in brief below, but the one I want to concentrate on here is what it means for Renarin’s powers. Renarin seems perfectly capable of using Progression (healing). He is also becoming increasingly proficient with Odium’s version of Illumination (his future-sight). However, he is still having issues with using Illumination in the way other Radiants (including other Truthwatchers) use it. My theory is that Progression is the “truest surge” of Cultivation and so Illumination is closer to Honor. Honor and Odium are especially at odds, and Odium’s light’s influence is making it difficult for him to use his Illumination in the way Shallan can. However, he can combine Cultivation and Odium’s version of Illumination and show what growth and future sight result in (Moash’s better self). However, Navani and Raboniel have shown us that with effort, you can combine Odium’s and Honor’s lights. So I am sure Renarin will get there eventually and be able to replicate Shallan’s version of Illumination. However, the crucial point is that he can access his surges in three different ways as opposed to the usual two. If Odium is correct and that Surgebinding is the strongest form of Investiture in the Cosmere that would mean the Renarin (and now Rlain too) is the potentially the most powerful mortal in the Cosmere, he can access two of the fundamental forces of the Cosmere in three different ways. If all the truespren are able to gain access to Odium’s Light then this will mean they can all grant three ways of accessing the fundamental forces of the Cosmere. It’s important to remember the first assumption I made here, that there is nothing “evil” about Odium. It’s just a force in the universe. It might mean that those spren that have access to Odium’s Light view the world in a slightly different way, but one of the themes of RoW was that spren can change and develop over time. They can evolve. Sja-Anat seems opposed to R-Odium’s goals. The origin is not their destiny. But more significantly, what this theory would imply is that each Shard could give even more Light. A Spren that comes into contact with Endowment could get another source of Light via Enlightenment. This is why the potential for spren to leave Roshar is so important for the Ghostbloods, we are talking about access to huge levels of power. So, to conclude this ramble, Renarin has access to two fundamental forces of the Cosmere in one more way than almost all others do. This makes his potential power level highest of every mortal we have met so far in the Cosmere Other implications of this theory The Shards can create many different types of Investiture. In theory Honor could use Allomancy and Endowment could use Surgebinding. The Old Magic might be the magic system Cultivation used before she got on board with Surgebinding. There may be an Honor-based magic system that predates Surgebinding If each Shard has a “truest surge” there should be 16 Surges, not 10 (I’ll admit this probably is a big problem with this theory)

You always did prefer stabbing to pokers

"Thank you, miss Louis," Wendy said, pulling on a regular waitress uniform that the woman had nabbed from the laundry. "Thanks for everything." "Oh, please, dear. There's no thanking about it." Louis smiled at her. "I wasn't much older than you myself when I had Ivian." "When you had--" Wendy blinked. "You're--" "Let me know if you need anything. I'm going to make sure that drunkard gets thrown in jail or... I dunno. At least gives you money." With that, Louis left.

Taln never broke. We don't know what happened but after the everstorm the oathpact was fully broken and he escaped/was released/who knows. But he still hasn't broken. Questioner Taln. Did he actually ever give up? Or was it... Did he just get released when...? Brandon Sanderson You will find out, but Taln did not break. You'll find out how it happened, but Taln did not break.

I, huh, really? I have a hard time accepting that because the Metallic Arts have no visible commonalities, compare S-Illumination and V-Illumination, both have obvious effects related to light/waveforms, thus we'd expect A-steel, F-steel and H-steel to share some commonality, relating either to Pushing, speed or physical allomancy, for most of the metals there doesn't seem to be a common theme, no rhyme nor reason as to why this metal fills this function across magic systems. We can make educated guesses about most of the powers of Voidbinding (Tension, Division ), because we can, based on Renarin, conclude that they will have effects in line with Surgebinding and how it expresses Surges. We wouldn't expect V-Tension to enable Soulcasting, as that is not in line with being an expression of Tension. On the other hand, if you handed someone a feruchemy chart and gave them a thorough explanation of the Metallic Arts, leaving out which metals perform which function in the other two, then asked them to, based on this information, fill in the metals on the other charts, could they reliably conclude which metals actually do what? Seeing as there tends to, aside from tin, be very little relation between what the metals do in each system, I'd hazard a no. Does that make sense? ¤_¤

I disagree with that assumption. First there almost no chances combining Ruin and Odium will not create something even more dangerous and second there are more than one way to fuse to Shards, for example we know there's another possible combination of Ruin and Preservation called Discord. You fuse Honour and Odium in a way that use Honour to temper Odium but you could also fuse them in a way that use Honour to fuel Odium The spren with the least influence from Honour are Cultivationsprens, not Mistpsrens. And the fact Tumi was singing the Rhythm of War imply it's his Cultivation part that was transformed

Cool - thank you - I didn't know about that WoB. I guess that mean the relevance of "truest surge" is much lower in terms of whats going on with Renarin's powers. So I think I should have been more precise in my original post. I am not saying Voidbinding and Surgebinding are the exact same thing. I am saying they are different versions of the same overarching magic system. So like Allomancy, Hemalurgy and Feruchemy are three different versions of The Metallic Arts, filtered through Preservation, Ruin and a combination of the two respectively. Raboniel tells us clearly that the Fused access the Surges: "We of the Fused know our Surge with an intimacy a Radiant will never know." (RoW, Chp 31) The Fused are accessing the Surges through Odium and the Radiants are accessing them through Honor and Cultivation. I think the problem is that we call what the Radiants do "Surgebinding" instead of Honor-binding and Culti-binding (for obvious reasons given how ugly those words are). I think Odium's line at the end of RoW about other Shards discovering the strength of Surgebinding is the key one. The implication is that there is a version of this overall magic system that uses the suffix "binding" that can be filtered through each of the Shards. My fundamental point is that as things stand, Renarin and Rlain are the only two beings we know of who can access their surges through three different Shards. The implication of that is that their potential power level is higher than that of most everyone else.

I am so sorry y'all have to put up with me. But this song is [REDACTED] amazing.

Thank you! Good I'm glad I haven't completely got the wrong end of the stick. So what makes you say this? As far as I can tell the Heavenly Ones are granted the "surge" of Gravitation through Odium and Kaladin accesses it through (mostly) Honor. The same fundamental force is accessed through two different Shards. I agree they are not "the same thing" in the sense the pathway is different, but they are resulting in the same effect. Yup - I'm guessing that's what has been called the Old Magic So as I said, this is probably the biggest problem with my theory. I'm not sure what you mean by a distinction. What I would say is; I spent Final Empire assuming there were at most 11 metals. Then by the time of BoM not only are there 16 (plus the god metals) and there are increasingly crazy ways of manipulating those metals. I guess I'm ready for Brandon to pull the rug out from under me again on the Surges.

I changed my name back. It was weird as DancingQueen.

Found a Russian rock opera about... either Beren and Luthien or Finrod. It's telling the Beren and Luthien story, but the title is 'Finrod'. It's actually pretty good. The costuming, especially for Galadriel, is quite nice. Edit: It is about Finrod. It's also excellent, and if you're a Silmarillion fan, you might get a kick out of this.

Interestingly, he does not recreate the visions. Glys is the one who does it and uses Light to do so, and it takes effort and tires him out pretty quickly. As for your actual question, I don't know, and am very curious on that too. Maybe Glys can make illusions (which only he and Renarin can see, for whatever reason) and "capturing" and "recreating" the vision is just that, memorizing and then recreating from the memory? But either way, this seems to be different from the visions themselves, which Renarin speaks about as if they can't be controlled.

Shouldn't, say, Shallan have remarked on him glowing at the end of WoR though, when he's definitely seeing something? Also, it's been pointed out on Shardcast that we've never seen any other example of someone Surgebinding unwillingly, uncosciously, yes, against their express wishes, no. So it would be odd of this was an actual ability he was using but couldn't control. I don't know, possibly because actively using the ability takes more effort? Possibly because it's not actually a vision, but the recreation of a vision? Oh? -Rhythm of War, chapter 111 He doesn't get a vision? ¤_¤

The four men regarded one another for what seemed like an eternity as sweat dripped down Caden's brow, he couldn't afford to watch every little detail of his three opponents' movements, so he sufficed for watching them as a group. The general recalled how he had them drilled endlessly on working as a single unit to overpower their enemies, so watched for tells that he would recognize. A twitch of the arm there, a shift of a stance there, the men revealing their first moves while still deciding on them. The men of the Praetorium Guard snapped forward, and their blades began to whistle through the air. Caden growled as he allowed himself to be pushed on the defensive, there being too many blades for him to defend against and attack. The men moved smoothly, one attacking the general directly, while the other two tried to get around his guard on either side. Caden shifted to his left quickly, advancing on that man and placing him between the general and the rest of the guardsmen as quickly as he could. He struck quickly and brutally, aiming to tear away the man's defenses before the other two could get in to help. The fight shifted as the man did everything he could to defend himself, waiting but a moment for the others to get around and flank Caden once more. They would continue this maneuver until they wore Caden down, knowing their numbers offered them an undeniable advantage. However, Caden knew this very tactic well. Just as the men were closing in on Caden's flanks, he performed a large sweeping motion with his blade to ward the men off, but instead they smelled vulnerability as the general lowered his guard. They moved in rapid succession to strike beneath Caden's blade, just as he nearly finished his sweep. However, instead of stopping, he let the momentum carry him forward as he lunged towards the man in the middle, catching him off-guard as Caden batted away the flat portion of the man's blade with his arm, tackling him to the ground. The second the man touch the ground, Caden knocked his head with his knee, and rolled to his feet, grinning at the two other men as they tried to strike as wolves fighting in a pack, defending their downed man. He shifted his stance to face off against the man on the right, lunging towards him and driving the two men apart. He cleanly deflected a blow from the left before shifting back to his right, committing himself to a brutal attack that left him open to the man to his left. He swung his blade to strike at the man at his right, but shifted his footing at the last moment when he heard the whistling of a blade to his left, redirecting the momentum to strike the man firmly on his padded blade arm while he was trying to recover from the heavy swing. He dropped to a knee, gasping in pain while the man to Caden's right suddenly started a desperate offensive to redirect the general's attention. Caden met the man blow for blow before easily overpowering the one man in a few moments, causing the third blade to drop to the ground. General Praetorium stood for a moment in his sweat, catching his breath while his men quickly got to their feet before saluting their commanding officer.

Some did some did not, Jezrien did not, Sadees did not, Gaviar Elhokar and Jasnah had small ones.

Not the puffy Allrianne This character is funny This character is a follower This character prefers a certain color This character has been in allegiance with at least 3 different people (I have one more clue plus a bonus if nobody gets it this time)

The visions that come to him unbidden require Light? I know he uses Light when he deliberately "re-plays" one, but nothing of the sort is indicated about when he just sees the stained glass images around him. Also, I believe Rlain gets the same type of vision when he's in no position to have Light. ¤_¤

It is not the humorous Lightsong Nor the faithful Llarimar

Would have to be the Last Desolation since the False Desolation didn't actually involve any Return, right? Voidspren and Fused were still stuck on Braize.

Lightsong?

Feruchemical use of steel, Allomantic use of steel, Hemalurgic use of steel Surge of Illumination, Void of Illumination, Life of Illumination. I don't see a difference Works for me.

Not the buddy Wayne Not the *chef’s kiss* Rock Not the sarcastic Aarik Not the short Beard This character is funny This character is a follower This character prefers a certain color

It is not the mysterious Hoid It is not the *gags* Tonk Fah It is not the cheeky Shallan This character is funny This character is a follower

Here's my opinion: Every human is about to have the absolute worst ten days of their lives. So far the war has just been a series of mostly normal battles, albeit with the introduction of Surgebinders and thunderclast. We haven't seen the Midnight Mother since OB, and as far as we know she can create endless armies of eldritch abominations. Kaladin, one of the strongest fighters in the entire coalition, struggled to beat a Yelignar-powered Amaram with almost no knowledge of the surges and about 5 minutes of practice controlling his powers, while he was still going through the transformation. The Windrunners are heavily outnumbered, Jah Keved has just turned to the enemy, the KR have no real way to use Anti-light without Raysium, and one of the leaders among their Radiants just started a war with one of the most powerful secret society in the entire Cosmere. of the two Bondsmiths, one barely gained her powers, and the other is going to be preoccupied with the contest of champions. Kaladin and Szeth, the two best fighters of the Knights, have been deployed on a mission to a place about as far away from the battlefield as possible, on a mission to help an insane herald with the power to destroy planets, who may or may not be not just insane but also evil. TLDR, I'm expecting a lot of Bridge four and KR interludes that include a lot of dying, and Kaladin's PTSD clinic is going to be very, very busy.

If I had to choose one of these options, I'd say it was more the former. But I don't think I would describe it as an either/or. I think it can be both. There were ongoing and growing fears that spiked at a certain point (the imprisonment of BAM I think), prompting a "decision in the heat of the moment by the spren and their knights" as Brandon said in the recent WoB. Let's just set the scene. The False Desolation is ongoing and the KR are fighting singers with forms of power and Voidlight provided by BAM. The Heralds are MIA. We know that the generation of Radiants that committed the Recreance learned the truth about humankind's origins. They learned that humans had originally come from Ashyn but had destroyed Ashyn through Surgebinding. They learned that humans were the invaders in the war with the singers over Roshar. Honor was going mad and/or dying. And so, rather than reassuring them that their cause was righteous as he had with previous generations, Honor raved and told them they would destroy Roshar just as they had Ashyn. There's also friction between the Radiants and the rest of the world, and in-fighting between the orders. Oh, and the Sibling has lost trust in humans and is expelling them from Urithiru. So imagine all of that going on and then the imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram happens. This tears out the the Connection and Identity of an entire species, leaving them shells of beings. We're also told in RoW that the imprisonment wounded Roshar itself and "touched the souls of all who belong to Roshar. Spren too." So this would have included all of the Radiant spren, who are bound to the spirit web of Roshar. (in RoW 75, Vaiu tells Adolin that "Deadeyes cannot think, but they are still spren - bound to the spiritweb of Roshar herself.") And because the Nahel bond involves linking the spirits of spren and human, one imagines that the Knights might have felt something too. So imagine, already burdened with worries about the dangers of the Nahel bond and the Surgebinding it allows, the KR and their spren witness/feel the extent of the damage that can be done with powerful Surgebinding. So now you've got a concrete example of harm to go with the existing fears. I can buy that that freaked them out enough that they acted rashly, thinking they needed to make sure they put a stop to Radiant Surgebinding right away. As a postscript on BAM's imprisonment and its relation to deadeyes, I'll note that I think BAM Connected to all of the singers by Connecting to some portion/aspect of Roshar itself. And as I noted above, spren are connected to the spirit web of Roshar. So when BAM was imprisoned, I think some crucial Spiritual aspect of Roshar (maybe something to do with how Honor's Investing in Roshar created sapient spren?) was also sealed away and therefore torn away from the spren. This made the Radiant sprens' spiritual Connections to their Knights all the more crucial, and when the Knights foresook their oaths, that left the Radiant sprens' minds untethered, causing the deadeye phenomenon. Ooohh, running with this idea that BAM's imprisonment messed with whatever Honor did to create sapient spren, what if before the imprisonment, spren were able to come to the Physical Realm without giving up their minds? Do we know whether that's always been the case? Might explain a bit of what happened with Adolin and Maya - maybe it was him forging a Connection with her and then sharing his mind with her while in the the Cognitive Realm that allowed her to regain some level of sapience.

I was a also a bit disappointed that there was no speculation about Shallan's mother - it certainly seems ripe for a Big Reveal of some kind. I'm a big fan of the Chanaranach theory and it seems a shame it wasn't covered, though one could argue that it was about Shallan and not her mum. Another episode, perhaps.

Hello and welcome. Glad to see I am not the only one who compulsively rereads the cosmere.

Kaladin.

I reeeeaaaallly like this. "You're worth more than what you can give to other people."

My reasoning is that Ishar said that there is a way to "reset" the Oathpact. So how one does that? I would guess that maybe it requires adding one to remaining 9 heralds so that Lift can count them will all her fingers. So if that is true, then the question shifts to whom could we put in that role? Jezrien could fly and stick things together, so can Kaladin. Jezrien was a patron of Windrunners, and now the closest thing to that is again Kal. Jezrien was suppost to be great leader, Herald of Kings. Kaladin can lead, he can inspire where there is little to none hope, so some could call him a great leader too. So now, if Kal adopts Shalash then he will be prime candidate to burn on Braize for eternity to Protect all the crabs on Roshar.

What do you mean why? Because that would mean he's sending Kaladin to get tortured! Knowingly, because he knows what happened to the Heralds between Desolations! If he guilt-trips him "for the greater good" or... orders him... I'd want Dalinar dead. Preferably in a drawn out fashion but I'll settle for a quick shanking.

I don't know how much of this is my own original thoughts at this point... I'm sure some of it is coming from others, but I've forgotten who exactly, and where. In any case, I've referenced these ideas a few times in the last few months so I wanted to write them out in one place. Behold, the great mystery that is Kaladin's chapter icon: We know that this symbol isn't without meaning. ALL of the character chapter icons show something related to the character that's not particular hard to figure it out. (well, most of them--Taln's still has a bit of mystery to it as well) Obviously with Kaladin's we have some spears, but there's got to be more to it than that. Brandon has essentially confirmed that there's something of significance in it that we don't know about yet: So let's break it down. What are we looking at? It's got 5 spears. Four down below and a fifth sticking out further. The fifth one has some kind of banner tied to it, with a glyph that's somewhat obscured. There's also some kind of circular ring shape. Not quite a crescent. Lastly are some sketchy lines all parallel to the spears. It's hard to tell what these are meant to depict. Perhaps the lower four spears are meant to be indicative of Bridge Four? Seems like a reasonable notion, but not much more to say on that. It's important to note that we don't know what the glyph is. We've tried to decipher it in the glyphs threads... But even knowing the glyph phonemes doesn't make "translating" glyphs very easy, and this one is hard to get a clear idea of. I could also swear that I've asked Isaac about the ring shape, I think at JordanCon 2018... Unfortunately, if I'm not imagining this then I never bothered to record it in Arcanum... I was interested in the idea because I wondered if perhaps it was depicting an eclipse. This would be odd, as Roshar's moons work in a way such that eclipses aren't a thing that happens there. But I recall Isaac confirming that it is NOT depicting an eclipse. Take it or leave it, I guess. I didn't give much more thought about this icon, after working through some of these questions in the past... Until after Rhythm of War. Somebody (I think on Reddit) was asking about the glyph here, and they wondered if it might depict a tower. And I think that's a pretty reasonable guess. To be honest, I had wondered in the past if it might be some kind of spinoff of Dalinar's own tower-shaped glyph. We see the Kholin glyph looks fairly similar to the one here, and the "khokh" of Dalinar's glyphpair is depicted as a tower. It would make sense that Kaladin might adopt some kind of Kholin glyph eventually, after he essentially joined Dalinar's camp at the end of TWoK. He was granted some land in Alethkar by the Kholins, in the Crownlands. Maybe there's a connection though. In any case, I do have to agree that the glyph looks somewhat tower-like. But Kholin/Dalinar connections aside, why would Kaladin pick up a tower-shaped glyph? Especially in the current setting of the books, where a tower has pretty strong ties to THE tower, Urithiru? Now let me dig up the TWoK Chapter 53 epigraph that I've referenced in this post title: I was never quite sure what to make of this epigraph. The "tower and crown" are part of Dalinar's glyphpair, so it always seemed suggestive of him to me. But then the spear doesn't fit at all. Many people take "spear" as a strong indicator of Kaladin, but I've never been happy with how he could have anything to do with a "tower" or a "crown". The whole "fallen title" bit could easily just refer to the Knights Radiant in general, or perhaps some role within their number. But then I got to thinking about what might happen in Stormlight Archive book 5... Many people think Dalinar will fall to Odium. I don't--some arguments here, but that's beside the point. Many people think Dalinar will reunite the pieces of Honor and Ascend, or something similar to this--I'm betting this. Many people think Dalinar will simply die. But NOT many people seem to think Dalinar will come out of book 5... the same person that he is now. And this makes me wonder who will take up his position as the King of Urithiru, and the leader of the Radiants. Now, I've seen some people argue (reasonably) that the Radiants don't need a monarch. It's not entirely clear what their leadership structure looked like in the past. I think it's possible that they will continue on with some kind of... representative democracy type leadership? But I think they are much more likely to pick out a primary leader to unite under. This is what seems to have naturally happened with Dalinar, and I don't see why they wouldn't want it to continue that way. So... if Dalinar is out of the picture, for one reason or another, who becomes the boss? Navani is the obvious first choice! She's bonded to Urithiru itself, after all. She's a queen. She's used to leadership. She's a bondsmith. Perfect.... But I'm just not convinced. I honestly don't really get the sense that Navani would WANT this job. She has finally embraced her scholar side. She finally has the opportunity to be the engineer that she has always wanted to be. She's knocking that job out of the park I bet. And it's a REALLY important job too! I just... can't believe she would be very jazzed to get pulled back into the world of politics. So who else do you pick? Jasnah isn't a terrible candidate, but she's already Queen of Alethkar so there's a conflict of interest here. The same one that pushed Dalinar out the door, practically. And I kind of get the sense that she doesn't want the authority of Queen of the Radiants either. And.... That's pretty much the end of the list I can come up with... Except for Kaladin. Kaladin who has single-handedly saved EVERYONE multiple times. Kaladin who is famous and respected by pretty much everyone. Kaladin who has been on the front lines of the war as well as at the top with kings and queens. Kaladin who easily has practically no political ties that bring a conflict of interest. Kaladin who was one of the first new Radiants. Kaladin who has remarkable leadership skills. Kaladin who has broad support among the lower class darkeyes of Vorin nations and no political baggage with others. Kaladin who is scarred from his time on the front lines in innumerable ways and who REALLY DOES need to step back a bit from the battlefield after this one last mission to wrap up book 5. Kaladin who is the de facto leader of the Windrunners--the order associated with Jezrien, who was a king and the leader of the Heralds. I think Kaladin is perfect for the job! So back to the Death Rattle... What could the fallen title refer to? Not entirely clear, but perhaps it refer to the leader of the Radiants? I'm not sure if it's "fallen" as some reference back to the Recreance and the Radiants of the past or if it's just referring to Dalinar dropping that title by one means or another. The associated of the spear to Kaladin is easy of course. The tower and the crown could simply refer to Urithiru and his role as leader/king of the Radiants. Could it be that this is precisely what we see depicted in Kaladin's chapter icon? Again, the spears are obvious. The banner bearing the glyph of what seems to be a tower--Urithiru, a symbol of the Knights Radiant. And the circular shape around the edge, representing a simple crown.

This is a theory I've thought about recently, though I don't personally think it was behind the Recreance if it's true. I'm not certain where I stand on it, at the moment. It could certainly be the "betrayal" bad enough for spren to take seven millennia to bond a singer again... This likely wouldn't work under your theory, as we have spren whose Radiant died still around and bonding (Yunfah is I think the only example we know, not sure how many other Radiants have died). Eh, idk. It affected the spren in a very specific circumstance (bonded with broken Ideals), and singers who were directly Connected to, and recieving Light and forms from, her. It's possible it had wider effects, but they might only show in a similarly complex scenario. (Of course, my guesses are often wrong, so maybe don't listen to me xD) I believe this subforum is full Cosmere spoilers?

Completely agree with your second point being troubling. I can only guess the Cyptics chose a child for something like the reason Syl chose Kaladin out of millions, that Shallan was just that good of a fit. Still, what child has ever made it to adulthood without the kind of outburst that resulted in Shallan Deadeye-ing Testament? Spoiler tags are just because of length. It’s usually very early trauma that results in dissociative identities, so it’s almost certain young Shallan experienced far worse than what we’ve seen. Even if she didn’t, her reaction to it was severe enough to leave her with a broken identity, so surely enough to leave her with a broken soul. Potential answers for your third question stem from that. If she was so broken already, Shallan likely did have some terrible truths. Ones that would definitely be weighty to a little child, since they can feel everything very intensely. Shallan’s achievement just doesn’t detract from the other Radiants’ accomplishments the way it would if so young a child had sworn to either protect those who couldn’t protect themselves or protect those they hated.

One important fact I would remind others: Testament is a name of convenience given to Shallan's first Cryptic only at the very end of RoW. Her original name was Pattern, because all Cryptic's names are Pattern (referring to different patterns, but to human speech their names are all the same). Thus when reading Shallan's dialogue and thoughts in the earlier books, any time she says or thinks "Pattern" there is intentional ambiguity about which she is referring. Thus, when Shallan activates the Oathgate and calls out to Pattern, this doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't using Testament. I'm of the opinion that Shallan is using Testament as her sword all throughout WoR. In fact her first time summoning Pattern as a sword is in Oathbringer Chapter 15 when Adolin requests to see the sword and Shallan has a somewhat unexplainable panic attack. Pattern initially comments Implying something important was being done when summoning Pattern as a sword for Adolin. Eventually she creates the Radiant persona to abate the panic attack. The panic attack and generating of a new persona make more sense in the context of RoW: Shallan is about to summon a shardblade that is distinct from the one she was previously using, and she can't confront that reality yet. This is also the same chapter where Pattern drops his disturbing line: “It’s because you hate me,” Pattern said softly. “I can die, Shallan. I can go. They will send you another to bond.” e: Another point. Testament's spren friend mentioned finding her on an island far to the east. It's the Shattered Plains Oathgate platform, the last location Shallan summoned Testament.

Why? It was glowing, it was drastically changing shape and size for Shallan's convenience, and she even thought to herself that she couldn't use Pattern to move around illusions like she did on previous occasions due to... something, which turned out to be that he was the shardblade she lent to Kaladin. And that was at the time when she believed that Pattern was separate from "the fruit of her sin". She didn't want to aknowledge that Pattern could be a shardblade. If Testament's blade was already so much more "alive", then shouldn't she have been more like RoW Mayalaran in the Cognitive realm? I also don't think it likely that Shallan was further than on her second Truth/Third Ideal as a child. IMHO, it wouldn't make sense, given the fact that higher Ideals tend to be much more difficult and painful and require deep soul-searching. A child shouldn't be capable of doing this, they are still too malleable and changing too much.

Is this A. A toddler’s scribbles B. An unintelligible section of the Diagram C. My physics teacher trying to use OneNote

I'd mention the ending but it seems to be a common complaint of the series. Also, this was only my second venture into YA. I started reading Abercrombie's Shattered Sea trilogy without even realizing it was YA (I hadn't realized just how graphic the genre could be, Reckoners included). Anyways, other than the unsatisfying ending, I find myself more interested in what would come next more so than everything I've already read. I would much rather see how this world that has existed among cruel and heartless Epics would react and adapt to them being heroes, especially as human governments start rising again. It is hard to imagine that they would openly welcome heroic Epics, even new Epics who appear post-Calamity (I imagine that all of his power sets would remain and recycle among humans, pretty much creating a world of superpowers among humans without the inevitable corruption bit). Also, this might seem strange since I read the entire trilogy but I didn't really like David. For one, I wasn't aware it was written in first-person when I bought it or I may have waited. Regardless, I didn't really like Dave most of the time and his personality seemed... weird. His whole shtick of being bad at metaphors made me smile here and there and I guess it was meant to be funny but most of the time I just groaned when I read it (and not in a good way like when hearing a corny pun). He did have his moments, though where I did connect with him and actually care about him such as the scene where he recalled riding bikes with his dad. With all that said, I still enjoyed the series. This is one of the few stories I've read in which the plot made me want to keep reading more so than the character, even if the ending flopped a little. I loved the idea of ordinary humans fighting against superpowers (with minimal superpower aid of their own). I also loved all of the unique Epic weaknesses and power-sets. These power-sets are an awesome example of why and how Brandons is so good at creating magic systems. He takes a lot of old, recycled power sets and adds an interesting twist, usually in the coupling of strange and off-the-wall weaknesses and limitations. People keep talking about how they want a movie or a TV series but I'd like to see a comic book version (or continuation, as mentioned above). A table-top RPG would be pretty cool, too.

Well in that case I’ll keep going, I have way too many random things saved