Could Be Fire

I think the Hallandren/Idris jungle area is just super super remote. There's some comments about trade with other kingdoms so my vibe was more Sel/Scandrial (there's other civilizations in the world that our protags just don't really care about b/c they're far away) than Theorndy (spooky mystery lost civilizations). Possibly also enforced stagnation? Last time they had an explosion of research it lead to the Manywar and everyone's favorite super nuke equivalent Nightblood. The Idrian govt at least is canonically? And we don't don't really see any "cosmere researchers" as we know existed pre-Manywar The first Returned was also one of the colonists. The Returned are dependent on Awakening, not the reverse, so Endowment could have existed before. It's interesting, both Nalthis and Roshar seem to be more cosmere-aware in their past than their narrative present. It would really interesting to know how the Manywar lines up with the Desolations.

But that doesn't mean each Shard is only involved in their respective magic systems. If you believe Rabonial, she says that True Surges included both Cultivation and Honor. So other than Adhesion all the surges have at least a little Cultivation in them. Sorta Mistborn/Elantris spoilers So even if Surgebinding is "Honor's Magic", it doesn't mean Cultivation and Odium aren't intrinsically part of it as well. There's also how related Ashyn surgebinding is to the modern Rosharan Knight Radiant kind? Modern Surgebinding makes sense to be mainly Honor's because it's reliant on the Nahal Bond (which is a very Honor concept), but it clearly wasn't always that way. Even with Modern Surges, there's the Fused who use Surges but are of Odium.

I know the quote, it's the headline of the surgebinding page. Rabionel also thought that mixing Stormlight and Voidlight would be impossible, she's relatively cosmere aware but RoW is literally about her learning new things and having wrong perceptions about Odium/Honor/Cultivation.

I don't think we know about early Roshar to really say that. WOB is that The Rosharan system was manufactured [by Adonalsium] for a specific purpose. I don't even think we know for certain if Surges pre-date the Shattering, Raboinel does say that Cultivation and Honor made the surges but other elements of Rosharan magic (Spren and Highstorms) explicitly pre-date the Shattering, and Raboinel has been wrong about investiture before. Even if Odium is less likely to have literally made the Surges (like how Preservation made Allomancy or Endowment made Awakening) than Honor/Cultivation, he's clearly deeply invested (for all meanings of the word) in Surges and Surgebinding. The Fused have direct access to the traditional Surges and he can power those traditional Surges with voidlight. There also seems to be a whole mirror set of "voids" to the Surges that are related but distinct. Especially with the themes of RoW with the reveal of Warlight and Towerlight, that Odium isn't the opposite of Cultivation/Honor but only a different rhythm, it would only make sense to me he has a "truest surge" just like Honor and Cultivation do.

I think you make some super interesting points here and I really like your overall analysis, it's really well done!! I agree entirely about the looming unfinished threads of injustice (particularly as it relates to the Kholins/Alethi society). I really hope we get a satisfying conclusion. One thing I thought about while reading the essay that you hadn't really elaborated on was the possible direct connection of Dalinar's visions to what happened to Ashyn. Dalinar's vision is obviously set on Roshar, but the imagery we see is very reminiscent of the little we know about what happened. We know that "[the Ashyintes] destroyed their lands" (Elia Steele), and that we get a short description from Raboniel about the immediate aftermath that matches really well with more smoke/burn/fire imagery. It strongly suggests it was specifically Division of the all the surges that was the cause of the destruction. “I wasn’t there when your kind came to our world. My grandmother, however, always mentioned the smoke. At first, she thought you had strange skin patterns—­but that was because so many human faces had been burned or marked by soot from the destruction of the world they left behind. “She talked about the way your livestock moaned and cried from their burns. The result of humans Surgebinding without oaths," This actually blends in a really interesting way with some of your theorizing on Dusbringers/Division/Odium/etc. Both textually (and for a not in-universe perspective WOB), the explanation for Ashyn's destruction is unbound Surgebinding. I think it has to be Odium-powered Surgebinding (Voidbinding? some sort proto-Void/Surgebinding?) since the only Shard on Ashyn at the time was Odium. There's definitely something up with Division. The two orders with access to it only allow it higher oath levels, the only surge we know like that (OB 90 and WOB). Division is also conspicuously absent from the text compared to other surges. We get one look at it in action, Malata burning a table for show. The Division brand is also one of the two types of Fused we have literally zero information on. There might also be something to the implication that Shalash will become a Dustbringer (and also being Dustbringer POV)? We still don't know anything about Ashyn's destruction, who used surges to destroy it, how they actually did it, and what reason they had for doing so. SA is all about cycles, and it seems like that specific piece of history might be going to repeat itself based on Dalinar's visions.

In the final epilogue of Lost Metal, Steris asks Marsh how he's able to walk around without drawing attention. He says emotional allomancy but Wax explicitly calls out that as weird and that there's something else going on. What do you guys think it could be? I thought of few options but it's an interesting magical question with cool implications. It also might provide a clue to what spikes Marsh has, which ppl have been trying to work out for years (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) The simple answer is that it is emotional allomancy, especially since it's the only possible ability for being unnoticed that we know for certain that Marsh has. Wax doesn't think it's this, but Wax doesn't know emotional allomancy to same level that he understands steel. Wax comments that Marsh's gun stunt is even more impressive than it looks in in a deeply subtle mechanistic way that is only clear if you really know the metals. Maybe Marsh is able to be subtle enough to sooth specifically people's curiosity toward him and nothing else? Or some other soothing/rioting trick on the level of splitting steel lines to push on the same object at multiple points. However, this sort of contradicts what we see in Alloy of Law. Marsh's "don't notice me power" is clearly active at that point, Marasi notes that he's being ignored by the Constables even though she can see him. But his use of emotional allomancy is very textually clearly heavy-handed, and Marash explicitly says that he struggles to be subtle and doesn't have the talent Breeze does Marsh could also just be lying about his ability. Emotional allomancy is definitely something that works better if people think you're bad at it. That reads to me as more of a Kell move than a Marsh one, but it's possible. He's moving around very quickly with either F-Steel (storing speed) or A-Cadmium ( speed bubble like Wayne). Bleeder shows that steelrunners can run fast enough to be almost invisible, the gusts of wind and force of movement would be noticeable, but it would hide the fact that it's Ironeyes who is running around. Also makes sense for Ruin to give Marsh an F-Steel spike, it's a useful power on it's own and compounding comes automatically since inquisitors already have A-Steel. However, speed doesn't match what Marasi see's, with the constable's just ignoring him. A-Cadmium is probably a no, since even if Ruin as the shard knew it existed, the Final Empire didn't have the tech level to mine/produce it. F-Duralumin (storing connection) is a wild idea, but it seems like it might work for making some unnoticeable/unremarkable. It is one of two spiritual metals the Final Empire had the tech to produce, but, per the hemalurgy chart, you'd need a Cadmium spike to steal it. Which has the same "Ruin is unable to find cadmium issue" that speed bubbles have. However, if Ruin was able to magic up or find an ancient stash or produce a small amount of one of the unknown metals like Cadmium, it would make the most sense to use it in a Spike. Also compounding is built in like with F-Steel since we know Marsh has A-Duralumin. Something with an unsealed metalmind? Marsh wasn't running around unnoticed pre-Catacendre. He hasn't been adding spikes/powers after Ruin left but that doesn't mean he isn't making use of the Southerener's tech, especially since we know others of the OG squad had a part in developing it. Maybe a Duralumin medallion instead of Spike? If this is the answer Wax commenting on it may be a hint to some of the abilities we'll see from the Ghostbloods/Kelsier moving forward in Stormlight Archive and Era 3.

I'm not sure? It's Marasi who refers to it as his "treatment" Kell and Sazed talk about Atium compounding explicitly. I think the simplest answer is that Sazed and Co. are just trying to keep hemalurgic compounding under wraps as much as possible? The Arcanum reveals that post-Ruin hemalurgists can't compound anymore, and mentions that figure out how to do make it work again would be incredibly dangerous. So Sazed ais trying to keep people from looking into the whole concept, which means avoiding talking about how Marsh does it. Also keeping the details of how Marsh is alive keeps him safe? You don't want a repeat of ripping off his Atium metalminds like what happened to the LR. Of course that whole conversation between Sazed and Kell is a minefield of misdirection and secrets, so it's possible that it ended up being something else. I'm not sure what it would be though? Maybe giving Marsh Lerasium, if you believe that Sazed is lying about repeating Wax's results? Not sure how that would help though.

Yeah the truth of southern culture is clearly a purposeful mystery. Sorta like Shinovar in SA. I leaned toward taboo because the firemother/firefather terminology seems very reverent of the position, but I guess it could be more the child of Omelas sort of reverence.

I'd be more worried about the spread of unsealed metal minds. Way easier to convince society is okay than hemalurgy. Any time W&W hammered in how terrible it was for Wayne to store health, all I was thinking was seeing some poor person getting paid to fill an unsealed mind. Gold is just the most obvious metal too, mental/physical speed, strength, breath, determination, and fortune are all things that are ripe for exploitation if you could "convince" someone desperate to fill them for you. We know medallions can be filled by even non-ferrings so anyone poor is a target. It fits with the democratization (or I guess capitalization lol) of magic that's been hinted at as a theme for Era 3. It is interesting that the only medallions we've seen from the South so far (Warmth, Weight, Connection) are some of the least "harmful" to store up. Weight is entirely neutral or even useful to store, and Warmth seems easy as long as the person has access to heat. Connection is a bit iffy, but isn't obviously harmful like storing Health and is really more an unknown than anything. Wonder if they have some sort of taboo against the more exploitive ones?

Easiest answer is that Sanderson explicitly said that Kell is the kind person who runs schemes that attract bad actors, but he's good at maintaining order/civility in ppl under his direct control. So if he was on Roshar he could probably maniuplate Iylatil and Mraize into behaving, but he can't so they're back on their crem dung. Another answer based on older WOBs is that Kell didn't start the Ghostbloods and so the Roshar operatives we see are more associated with whatever the OG organization was about. Would help explain how they're so established in Silverlight and Roshar when Kell can't have been operating offworld that long (I guess up to 300 years, but that would have been very quick to get off the ground even for him). And also why Kell says that the first tenant is Scadrial nationalism which doesn't make sense for a world-hopper organization. It would also thematically match with the way the Kell co-opted and took over the existing Skaa rebellion to fuel his own goals. Have to take with a grain of salt b/c this is all Thaidakar reveals so it might be worded in a way because Sanderson is trying to hide the surprise but he does say that Kell is only a of the Ghostbloods not the leader. Also one of the first connections between him and them is a WOB saying that Kell had to join a Rosharan society he would join the Ghostbloods and "be in charge of them within a year".

I think this is a really good point. Especially looking at the interview with Khriss in the endnote. The version of hemalurgy the Marsh is made of doesn't really exist anymore. Kell and Spook's experiments probably uncovered a bunch about the modern rules of hemalurgy but Marsh is grandfathered in and canonically has some special abilities that aren't possible to replicate anymore.

Skybreaker-ghostblood cooperation is also really interesting in the context of the the sixth of dusk sequel fragment that we have.

More than a year of percolating later I'm more and more convinced of Moash redemption. It might be a "redemption in death" Vader/Snape style (sort of like Elhokar I guess lol?) but honestly, I can really see it being a full-blown Dalinar style dragging himself from the gates of hell to become a better person arc. I know killing Teft is really really bad, but he didn't just killing Teft for the lulz or revenge or even hatred of Teft but as a desperate attempt to make Kaladin commit suicide. Which, lol, does sound even worse, but death was the only way Moash can think of to keep Kaladin safe from Odium. Look back at Interlude 4 It's honestly kind of impressive that Moash is able to do this. Moash's POV in RoW really hammers in just how under Odium's control he is now, but he's still able to hold enough ofh himself together here to manipulate Odium into a plan that is (in his mind) the only way he has to keep Kaladin out of Odium's clutches. This is even a repeatable thing. There's also later in Chap 105. Same idea, Odium wants someone alive, Moash does what he can to kill them. Like yes murder bad but if Moash was truly completely irredemable, he would have just actually try to help Odium recruit Kaladin and Lift. The suicide baiting is seriously f'd up as a plan of action, but considering Moash is psychically connected to the literal embodiment of hatred who is playing 52-card pick-up with his emotions it's kind of understandable how he ended up with it. I think it's also important to remember that Moash joins Odium at an explicit "join us or die" choice. He chooses "join us", and he clearly regrets that. I'm not trying to say that Moash is secretly the hero or whatever, just that a redemption arc is very possible. The more I think about his character the more I see the parallels to Marsh especially (just compare Moash's RoW chapters to Marsh HoA ones), but also the Lord Ruler or Hrathan, the characters who are clearly villians from a narrative perspective (do bad things to the protagonist) but have understandable (and often magically forced) motivations. It's an archetype Sanderson clearly really likes. I also there's a lot to be said about how Moash's arc intersects with the Kholin/Moash/Roshone/Kaladin ""situation"" and the whole Alethi insitionalilized casteism thing that it's emblematic of, especially with Gaivnor's growing role in the narrative and the deliberate reminders that Dalinar was (and sometimes still is) a bad person but that's an entirely different thread.

I was with you? Still, sort of am? In the sense that it's not my favorite twist, and it took me a lot to be convinced of it. But at this point, the evidence is kinda hard to ignore. I'm worried about Shallan's reveals getting overplayed at some point, but he seems to be really committing to them. I assume there's some sort of thematic point to it all.

Yeah!! Like if Gavilar had thought about why he thinks he needs it and came up with a good answer, I think it could have been his Oath. Just one more step and he's there. Like "I will seek power to build a better future" is something I could see Gavilar saying and something I think could work as a Bondsmith Oath.