insert_anagram_here

Not sure about the timeline theory thing, I'll look into it. Either way, Re-Shepir and Midnight Mother from Dalinar's Vision might not even be the same entity. As TOTES shows Midnight Essenses can be autonomous and afaik the Unmade were 'ummade' at a later stage. No, I meant what we saw in TotES was the actual capturing Re-Shephir remembers. Then 'freed' at the ending of the book, it somehow travels to Roshar and gets invested by Odium to become the Unmade.

Could it been Riina? She obviously Lightweaves? And would that mean that some of the Midnight Essence travelled to Roshar ( maybe in exchange for the water there?) and was somehow Invested by Odium's Shard?

I also think that's Shallan and if that's Pattern.. Anyway about the foreground I think that's a wooden trunk of a tree with crystal leaves.

As stated in the Coppermind as well, Stormfather has said: So if the Stormfather is a collective cognition of who/what people think he is, that means that there are people that believe there is a difference between 'Child of Tanavast' and 'Child of Honor'. And the only ones that can say this are the ones that remember Tanavast right? Like maybe Cultivation's Vessel herself?

I love this WoB. Good job @Winds Alight! So, if we take "Child of Tanavast" figuratively it could mean that a difference exists between Dalinar's and Kaladin's definition of honor. Personally, I believe this to be true but since it seems to be a contesting topic, I will not elaborate for the time being. Maybe this divergence can be compared to Stormfather's existence which has changed across the ages due to people's cognizance of 'what the Stormfather is'. In the same manner maybe we can assume that the definition of 'honor' might've changed, evident in Alethi's warlike society in contrast to other Rosharan nations. We've also had other indications that languages on Roshar have changed a lot, meanings added and removed across the ages, to the point of some knowledge is currently lost. On the other hand if we take it literary, I believe there is potential for interesting lore to be uncovered from this idea. Multiple waves of humans arrived on Roshar, so that could explain the difference between Dalinar and Kaladin's heritage, as one could be a descendant of a different wave from the other. I would love to know if this entails a restriction of KR powers/surges between the different races/waves of men... I like both ideas tbh, so I'd like to believe that we might see both of the meanings fulfilled depending on the character point of view discovering this truth. Much like how Christianity's Original Sin, believed to define that all humans were descendants of Adam and Eve, which has divided intellectuals in the past about humanity's origin. I think that Sanderson likes to compare different point of views on fictional often-religious topics (that why we love Jasnah right?) and I think it would provide a lot of points for philosophical discussion.

@deaconI'm surprised that the forum culture I mentioned above has never fallen into your vision. It is the same in almost every theory thread. And I never said I didn't feel good when it was said to me, I'm not that soft hearted I was just a new member getting used to how things work here I guess and I did express my opinion on the matter without any combative attitude. (Certainly I made the mistake of thinking that an Arcanist was some kind of moderator back then, but I hardly took offence either way.) Lastly I never demanded anything from anyone specifically, I just requested proof in case there was any, for my personal curiosity. There is no police holding you down to answer, you can even add me on your ignore list if my presence bothers you so. I'm just here for the discussion and if you don't want to participate it's more than fine.

And yet when I first joined the forums and expressed a theory on a thread the reply I got from an Arcanist was: I don't see why there should be a double standard of expectation to what's happening now. ( The irony is that in that case I just wanted to discuss a theory, which by definition isn't supposed to have proof but is a supposition in order to explain something. On the contrary, here we are supposed to be discussing how we interpret Kaladin which is already described extensively in the books. The proof is in there but somehow people shape their own opinion regardless of in book proof. ) But let's go back one step, there is a misunderstanding, to the use of the word 'combative'. Discussion is not combat. Nobody is attacking you personally, not physically nor verbally. Most of the time there isn't even sarcasm or passive aggression. It's just that sometimes there is a request that arguments are backed up by proof. Is that really so irrational? I agree with most of your post, except from this part above. I honestly never had the impression that Kaladin was possessive or controlling. I'm genuinely perplexed why people, not just you, are expressing this. I honestly want to know if I'm missing some big in book scene that proves this and I just never saw it staring me back in the face.

@Alderant Thank you for your post. I'm sorry you are going through this and I'm glad you are feeling better on some days. You are a good person that cares for even strangers online and your post is proof of that. Especially when you do it on a forum that people seem to misinterpret everything you say, it doesn't change the fact that your own personal intention is purely good. I'll tell you now that I'm proof you are helping others by expressing your own pain, and you'll never know how many more people will read your words, even lurkers, in the future. You have affected people positively with this. Now about Kaladin, depression and his love life, I feel it's very dangerous to even comment because of all the people relating and projecting unto his pain, I feel there is responsibility for even the smallest detail said here, but I'll try. He needs help, from a person that will truly understand him. Logic dictates that will be an intimate relationship, to be understood so deeply, but maybe it doesn't necessarily needs to be a romantic one. (just like how in real life a therapist or a true friend isn't) - I'd personally want this to be Jasnah. But whoever his romantic interest will be, they will have to understand him just as intimately, because it's a darkness that will always be there and they will need to fight it together during the times when it will resurface. It has to be someone that truly understands his internal agony and I'm definately sure Sanderson feels the responsibility of it, of making this character and bringing them in their right state of mind before this romance actually happens. But first and foremost, the most important step is the next one. Kaladin needs to understand he needs help and seek it.

Back on the Amaram topic, it felt that the end of his story came to an ubrupt end because there was information we could've gotten about the Sons of Honor and Heralan, from him especially since Jasnah was now coming into power. So, the fact that he got ousted because he became a twisting-my-moustache villain was such an unimaginative way to do it. And now Mraize can just fabricate the story he feeds to Shallan unobtrusively to thicken the plot. It just feels a little cheap.

I'm talking about really really minuscule amounts of Investiture, trapped in the minerals of rainwater. So small to not notice that Investiture interacts, but on a grand scale of, say, the all the water on Roshar, it would amount to one shardpool. As far as knights and larkins go, we don't know too much stuff about them in the first place, but even if we did maybe the amount of Investiture on the ground isn't enough to make them notice? Just an idea that I'm throwing out there, maybe it will spark something in someone's mind.

What I find interesting is that in the WoB that @Child of Hodor quoted Sanderson took a moment to say that 'shardpool' isn't a word he created and then proceeded to guide the questioner towards a certain trail of thought. I think this points that a 'shardpool' as a word has a flaw that doesn't apply in the case of Honor's perpendicularity. And I think it's the aspect of scale, as in a pool is too small. We know that gems charge up during a Storm so we assume the storm is the Perpendicularity. But what if it's the rain? Bare with me. If Purelake is invested and the storm is invested the common thing between the two is water, but water without crem. So, we know that gems trap stormlight, so what if crem traps stormlight in minuscule quantities to the point that it's not visible? But then roughens up and traps it on the inside?

I think these are some very interesting WoBs about Shallan pointing out that her path isn't necessarily as straightforward as it may seem. You can interpret them however you like, but either way I think they are important to better understand Shallan as a character.

I'm just pointing out what Ico said on Honor's Path (see my first post on the thread). It seems that different people get different interpretations in everything, so your guess is as good as mine at this point.

Alright, let's assume we interpret the WoBs the same way then, do we have one about perfect gemstones being native as well?

Really? I know there is a WoB for spren, but I don't remember anything about surges. Do you have a source for this? Do you mean the Eila Stele? I think that's where I came up with the impression that the humans brought the Surges. But now that I look at the text closely, I'm not sure the wording says either way; nor that the humans brought the Surges nor that they were already on Roshar.

Okay, so this is the moment where we disagree then. To me, it reads that the self that accepts this place without fear isn't the same as the one that accepted 'I'm terrified'.

As it has been acknowledged above, one of Shallan's truths is " I'm terrified. " So, what does it mean when she feels for Adolin?

This is a thread about things that 'may' have been missed so since I was posting for Ciridae, I thought I might just as well post this "Foreign technology,” mention. Yes, it could be up to personal interpretation and I'm not a native speaker so I might be missing something in terms of syntax. But I could also say that Ico might have the same issue as a spren and human language. We do know that perfect gemstones draw Unmade tho, so at least the "Dangerous" (from Ico's POV) has to be true. And I believe that Surges might also be regarded as 'foreign' since the humans brought it when they arrived on Roshar. So yeah, maybe a hint and not definately something proven yet.

Sorry for the zombification. A few lines above that: Perfect gemstones are foreign technology that 'draws the wrong spren' (and we know Unmade are drawn to them)

I'm certainly not the most empathic or articulate to express who Shallan is but I will try. A lot of the general Shallan dislike and disappointment stems from the fact that she doesn't always 'make sense'. A lot of readers, in order to start enjoying her, keep expecting that she'll start to make sense at some point, only to get further disappointed later on. It's a 'catch 22' and in the end, it starts to feel that she 'drags the story'. I don't think her mental state is something a reader would necessarily be able to associate with. And to understand Shallan, we should try to avoid our intrinsic personal projection as readers onto the character (which could work in understanding other characters) but instead understand by empathizing each of her moments separately. As others have said above, the 'truth' that she killed her mother with Pattern is an immensely traumatic one. We need our parents to ground us to who we are and to teach us how to live, so losing a parent is traumatic for any child (remember that she's only 17). Much more so when caused by death, devastating if their death was of a violent nature, crippling when the culprit is the child itself. Now multiply that (if that can be done with trauma) even further because she doesn't have another parent to get support from because she killed him as well! That's a tenfold of 'an understandable reason for existential crisis'. So instead of allowing any of those truths to be 'the' reality, she makes that 'a' reality of many. She copies herself to multiple selves, in order to accept each truth and reality to a separate self. From her first chapter in WoK we get the line 'She hated being duplicitous', so that's the foreshadowing that she has been doing exactly that all along. She creates Veil to be the 'undercover one' and Radiant to use Pattern as a blade, but the biggest truth of this is that all of them are real and all of them are her. Actually, someone could enjoy her character on a re-read even more, by noticing that she has been disassociating as far back as her flashbacks in WoR. There is a detail, a sense of 'coldness' that seems to overtake her on multiple occasions, which I think are the moments she separated herself from reality. She, of course, didn't name those selves every time, so it wasn't an obvious thing for a reader to notice. I'd also like to add another reason for a crisis. The fact that she had a Shardblade as a child, which she has no recollection of acquiring, and the questions that would make her raise and face, but that's a separate thread in itself. And also the fact that truths aren't necessarily a one-to-one match to Ideals, but that's another separate thread as well. Lastly, let me say that I really like the fact that you've realized that you might be missing something and you've made a thread about it. That's a big step that any one of us would struggle to do (I do) and it's commendable that you did it.

I'm not an expert but that's an interesting paragraph and maybe if I say what I'm reminded of it might jumpstart anyone else's memory. So it reminds me: 1. the WoK Prologue where Kalak assesses the aftermath of a battlefield 2. Smokes taking shapes of faces remind me of Midnight Essense 3. Maybe Salash's picture? :

@LerasiumMistborn You are misunderstanding my point. You are assuming that Dalinar is an unimportant character based on word count, but for Hoid you aren't doing the same. Whatever you think of Hoid comes from assumptions, not necessarily WoBs and even if they were, Sanderson is leaving enough breadcrumbs for Hoid (and for future books) as much he does for Dalinar (and future SA), yet you assume one is a lot more important in their own series(and their respective future books) than the other. Let's agree to disagree then because it's basically a RAFO.

I think that Amaram's demise was a little anti-climatic for me, I felt that he would have a more gray role to play in the plot and his involvement in Sons of Honor. I harboured such hate for him since WoK as well and that might've played a role into an assumption that there was something more there. And I'm stating this here because I think this is a done deal otherwise I'd still expect it to be resolved in later books. We just got through the midpoint of the first 5 books after all.

Just because we've had less word count of Dalinar it doesn't mean he is a less important character, or that we will get fewer words in later books. This is a false assumption. For example, Hoid hardly ever appears, can you say that Sanderson doesn't consider Hoid one of his favourites? Don't let your anticipation take over, there is still much to look forward to.

I don't see why it's dangerous to have high expectations, the more involved we get, the stronger the feelings we'll have of the books afterwards. I accept all strong, either positive or negative, feelings as a good thing, a way to feel 'alive' so to speak; If that can be said about reading books Anyway, I think that Dalinar is just the right type of character to have high expectations of and, as the story stands, the most likely to ascend. I think I've mentioned it before somewhere. I think 'Three of sixteen ruled, now the Broken one reigns' doesn't specifically point to just Odium as everyone assumes. Otherwise the wording would be 'now the Broken, one reigns' or something like that. I believe that all three of the Shards are the Broken, and concidered 'one' because there is no clear discinction where the pieces, the spren, belong to. So Unity is the path to get them all back together, to merge that Roshar Investiture into one Vessel and who better than Dalinar who is of Honor and Cultivation and Odium. He accepts all of that into who he is and that's what makes his story interesting. And what will make this story even more interesting is seeing how those three Intents inside him will battle one another as he unites more pieces unto himself. So his story is far from over.