Beautor

Gloom, I agree that Stormlight must have a guiding directive, and I'd guess that it's the cognitive aspect of the individual that determines what is the "fully healed" aspect. That would explain why Kaladin's slave brands have not healed. He still sees himself as a branded slave. As being someone held back and oppressed by the Lighteyes. The way I see it regarding Renarin's eyes, to me it makes perfect sense that his eyes would heal with Stormlight because he would see himself as seeing normally because he wears corrective lenses. Myself, without corrective lenses I would be almost blind, however because I wear contacts constantly I almost never think about having a vision deficit. If I were to form a fluid description of myself in my normal day it with normal vision because I always wear my lenses. I'm not sure if I have explained my theory on this well. With Lopen, from the way he talks about himself it appears to me that he still sees himself as having two arms, even if one is no longer attached. He describes his missing arm making a rude gesture towards Kaladin after being stuck to the wall the 2nd time. On the other hand something like ASD is very much a part of who you are and how you see yourself, so I can see Stormlight having no effect on that whatsoever.

Welcome to the forum and good luck on the Shardhunt.

Glad you decided to post. I lurked for a long time before I finally started chiming in too.

Welcome to the forum.

For once I completely agree with you Moogle. It's not surprising at all to see the children be affected by their parent's standards. Dalinar teaches his sons the way he thinks people should act, and because they respect him they adopt and develop similar qualities. I'm sure Gavilar and Navani did the same. Spren being attracted powerful people who fit the character criteria for a potential bond isn't a surprise at all.

I agree that it might be as simple as there not being anyone willing to accept a challenge from Sadeas, however I'd say I think there's more to it than that. I think (don't have a quote at the moment to back me up here) that there is also a social issue with a Highlord challenging or dueling someone lower than himself and from a different house than him. It could be precipitate a war between the princedoms. We may very well see this happening in WoR. I'm sure that at the very least we'll learn more about the Alethi system of duels and challenges.

While I personally don't think Ryshandium have Gemhearts, if they did it's not to hard to believe that it's unknown just because they are so rare and their interaction with the humans is extremely limited.

Brandon did insinuate in a Q/A that one could consider Ryshandium to be sentient. Sentience is usually granted by some form of investment, like the spren or seons. I'd guess that the Ryshandium are special because of investment (Cultivation might be a good source here) or because of interaction with spren. My guess is special investment by Cultivation. The Parshendi are not human, but you probably already knew that. The two races of Aimaians are not human either. There are many races of sentient spren. From there, it depends if you call something like Ryshadium sentient or not.

Love it. I also tend to agree with your belief that Syl dislikes shardblades because of what happened at Feverstone Keep, but I will reserve judgement for another couple weeks until WoR is in my hands. I'm sure we will get more clues (and more mysteries) then.

Personally I don't think Shen is a spy, although I can see it as being a distinct possibility. Looking at the last epigraph, which is talking about the Listeners and bonding it suggests that the forms need more than just the right spren. They also need the right emotion or trait. He might just be developing a spren bond/form. I am excited to see how this develops and how the Listeners (love the name) change forms.

Oh my... An up vote in hopes for the salvation of your soul.

I wonder if Shallan's betrothal will ruffle some feathers, or if the Shallarin camp will see it as an oportunity for Shallan to get closer to the Kholin family? I think most will see the betrothal as an opportunity. Personally I don't really care whether there's a romance between Shallan and whomever.

You know what on earth does leave weird plateaus surrounded by cracks, albeit on a much smaller scale? A lake bed that suddenly dries up. I really doubt the shattered plains were a lake or shardpool but it is similar.

I disagree that Taravangian doesn't know that Dalinar is having visions of some sort, or at least that something special or weird happens to Dalinar during highstorms. It's common knowledge among the Alethi warcamps that he has episodes where he raves in an unknown language or giberish, and has sprouted all kinds of rumours. Many people have suggested that Taravangian would likely have spies in the warcamps, and this is why he suddenly changes his mind and orders Szeth to murder Dalinar. From what I can see on the forum the most common belief is that Taravangian has found out that Dalinar is going to become the Highprince of War. I highly doubt that the spies would have failed to investigate and pass along any information regarding the weird behaviour of someone in whom Taravangian appears to have an interest. From the epigraphs we know that Taravangian is aware of at least one other individual who claimed to see visions or weird dreams during the highstorms.

I suspect that what Nohadon did was to refine the skills and power of surgebinding, kind of like how allomancers have done with various metals and alloys. I think it's likely similar with surgebinding and what Nohadon did with the Way of Kings. An individual may be able to form a nahel bond with a Spren and be able to surgebind to a certain extent, but is limited in his/her powers without the focus of the Ideals, similar to an allomancer using impure alloys. A metal that isn't pure, but is close is still useable by an allomancer, it just doesn't work as well, and may have side effects. I believe that Nohadon (and probably his friends) worked to find the purest ideals to allow a surgebinder to gain the maximum power, and he then wrote those ideals into the Way of Kings to act as the guidebook for the Knights Radiant.