gloriousGlorfindel

I'm guessing his futuresight is better than all the shards put together. So, if there's some event that needs to happen in the cosmere (which wouldn't have happened with him alive) that he foresaw, he might have consented to the shattering. As to what that event is, I think we'll find out in space-era mistborn, maybe he also gets put back together then (which he might have foreseen). Tens of thousands of years are probably nothing to a god. I'm excited to find out!

This is very interesting. I have always wondered if Helaran was Skybreaker "material". All the Skybreakers we have seen on screen tend to be preoccupied with following the law to the letter. Of course, everyone's favorite Murderer-in-white didn't give too much of a damnation about laws, but he did have his oathstone and executed (hehe) his master's wishes no matter the (spiritual) cost to him. Helaran on the other hand (from what Shallan thinks of him) doesn't seemed too obssesed with the interpretation of the law. He seems more Windrunner material than Skybreaker. He seems very protective of Shallan until he just ups and leaves. I think that it is possible that the Skybreakers weren't involved at all. It is possible that it was just the Ghostbloods posing as the Skybreakers to get Helaran out of the picture to pursue whatever motive Luesh had. Then they also get some fodder that could potentially kill Amaram/other Sons of Honor. That's a double win for the Ghostbloods. Like you mention, the Skybreakers should have known that Shallan was the radiant, unless her mother and the acolyte did not share the information (which to me seems to be the beginnings of a Greek tragedy).

I agree that someone close to him has to die, and for that reason I would think it would be Lirin and not Syl. Lirin has told him multiple times that he is not going to be able to save everyone and it'll be poetic in a messed up way that it will be his death that gets Kaladin to finally accept the fact.

I'm honestly the opposite, I hated Kaladin for most of book one (until the end, that was effin epic). I didn't realize that he was depressed and just thought he was too emo for me. On a second read now that I know this, he is more interesting. I loved Shallan right from the get go. She's really witty and I appreciate and empathize with her yearning for scholarship. And Jasnah is a big bonus!

@RShara, @The traveller I agree that the herald breaking would have an effect in the cognitive realm, but 8 years seems a little much in my view. The spren must have been going bonkers near the last desolation when the heralds broke as soon as they were caught. I agree with @Nnatel in that it is a little weird. The Honor-spren aboard the ship in Shadesmar were pretty surprised to hear that there were radiants with a bondsmith. I guess one could argue that the signs are a little hard to interpret and only the "wisest" among the spren know what they see. Still it begs the question, why didn't they do it sooner? I'm sure the spren atleast weren't fooled into thinking that the enemy was done for good. I'm not sure if that is all there is to it. As for Szeth, I don't understand how bonding a spren would be indicative of a oncoming desolation? For all the past desolations, we've either not had radiants (before they were a thing), or always had them (even between desolations). There seems to be no basis to predict that the appearance of a spren is closely linked to a desolation. Only way this could work if there were more cosmere-aware people among the Shin who know what's up with the Heralds and what's going on in Shadesmar. But this is directly against what they did to Szeth, if they were indeed aware, there's no reason to brand him Truthless. One last possibility is that it could be backwards, in that whatever happened to trigger the spren comeback could have contributed to the breaking of Taln. I don't remember the exact quote from the Stormfather, but he does say that when one (or a few) slip through, it opens up a floodgate that is the desolation. And we do have Ulim.

I got dustbringers. I do like to open things up to see how they work

I was thinking about the timeline of the magic coming back in stormlight and I think we are missing something there, atleast I am. We have different events happening at different times which maybe related. Firstly, the breaking of Taln. Do we have an approximate idea as to when this happened? I assumed this happened pretty close to the end of WoK when he makes an appearance, do we know for a fact from some WoB that it is (or isn't) so? (The fact that Hoid was right there leads more in the favor of yes) Next, we have the Stormfather sending out visions to Gavilar (and maybe someone other people before that). How long has this been happening? Surely not since the Honor's death. I figured it was a more recent occurrence but I don't think there's anything in the books to confirm that except for the fact that we haven't had any bondsmiths since. But that is neither here nor there. Then we have the first spren venturing over and forming bonds (Pattern and Ivory). The first I think was pattern since Shallan was eleven when her mother discovered that she was a radiant (and she probably already had shardblade then for all we know). Jasnah was also pretty close behind. More recently, we have Syl and the rest. Then we have the mysteries surrounding Szeth. He was branded Truthless because he predicted the voidbringers would return? How the hell did he know that? This was before Gavilar's assassination, presumably before Pattern came over. Assuming the breaking of Taln didn't happen six years ago (which is very reasonable), I think it suffices to say that there was a different event that happened that triggered the spren coming back and it seemed to have happened around 8 years ago (I got that number right from my behind, that is my earliest estimate for when pattern got to bond Shallan). I have nothing to support this, but I think it was the same event that led the Stormfather to send his visions out to the "worthy". I think it also has to be related to the weakening of the Oathpact and breaking of Taln since it wasn't too far in the future (8-10 years compared to 4500 years he was in Damnation). (Time is weird in the spiritual realm after all :P) Now, it could also be argued that the spren coming back was/is a gradual process slowly happening over the centuries but the proximity in time to the breaking of Taln seems to be too much of a coincidence. Easy way out is to say Brandon needed these events to happen for the plot, but Brandon is too good for that. I think we'll find more answers in Szeth's book. For all we know, it could be one of Gavilar's antics when he did something he did not intend (in the process of acquiring voidlight) and started out the chain reaction that is the Stormlight archive (Book 4 prologue weirdness). That would ironically mean that the Sons of Honor were successful after all. Anyway I have rambled on enough, what do you guys think?

This might be book five stuff, but I'd like to see the sibling revived and urithiru come alive! We're definitely getting Sja-anat, more of the unmade we haven't seen yet, maybe chemoarish Horn-eater peaks and cults perpendicularity

After a relisten of oathbringer, I was thinking about which oath # gave you spren as shardblade. From what we see of the Windrunners( Kaladin and Teft) and Edgedancers (Lift), I assumed it was clear that it would be oath number 3. Now when Dalinar is returning from visiting the Azish after getting that Oathgate opened, he has one of his flashback remembrances and almost faints. He runs to the Oathgate and forces the stormfather into a shardblade and uses that to open the Oathgate. But he had not sworn his third oath by then ( assuming no more oaths after "unite rather than divide") , so how did he get a shardblade? The other anomaly is Shallan. She's spoken too truths on screen and she already had a shardblade before all that, does that mean she's a full radiant now and just does not remember? I apologise if there's another thread about this on the forums, couldn't find one. Noob alert!

I don't think Adonalsium is a God in the traditional sense, in that he is kind, just and loving (blahh) . We do see that the individual shards that were once Adonalsium have intents that are not all good (Autonomy, Ruin and Odium). This makes me think that Adonalsium was not completely good. It is one reason why I think that there is no need for a second powerful God-like entity, all the conflict that you need to build a good story are right there, in Adonalsium.

So, Odium being a part of Adonalsium and "God's own wrath" and all that got me thinking. Odium trying his best to splinter the other shards is sort of like Adonalsium inflicting self-harm. Man, that god must have had some issues. The original sixteen must have gotten real tired of his sh*t and probably decided to shatter him just to stop his edginess. Sorry for spoiling the cosmere endgame reveal folks and you're welcome! ** tips hat Just to be crystal, this is a joke post and I mean no disrespect to people actually in depression, please get help!

Thanks @Nathrangking. That makes a lot of sense, I had no clue that there was such a thing as the "Spiritual ideal". I am curious as to what it means when its the "perfect version" of yourself. As you age your healing ability goes down, is that also part of your spiritual ideal? That is do you need more investiture to heal the same wound when you're actually older (but burning atium to be younger) as opposed to being actually young. Curious stuff ! @RShara, That makes a lot of sense. No wonder it was Atium bracers.

Hi everyone, Cosmere noob here. So, the lord ruler was pretty much immortal because he was able to compound atium, I'm not totally clear on how that works. I think I understand how compounding works, you store an attribute in a metalmind via Feruchemy and then burn it with Allomancy. Since Allomancy is net positive with investiture coming from Preservation you get a lot more of the attribute than what you stored in it. This makes sense to me if we look at gold for instance (with Miles HundredLives), he could heal from essentially anything as long as he had gold. Now with atium, if you're not a compounder since Feruchemy is net zero, after you burn the Atium, you are restored to your "original" age. But if you're a compounder, you can burn enough atium to be a certain age then should'nt that change be permanent like how it is for gold? Say, I'm a 100 years old (original age), I burn enough atium so that I'm 20 now, then shouldn't I remain at 20 if I take off the metal minds? That's how it works for gold doesn't it. You don't have to permanently keep burning gold to ensure all your past injuries remain healed. Why is it different for atium?

I'll take a cookie. Hopefully it's not ruined! Shard of thought, it's definitely Sazed, the ending to HoA was so epic

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forums and excited to be here! I picked up WoK last Fall by chance and have read everything I could find in the cosmere. Looking forward to SL4 and Lost metal!