mathwin

Based on the latest preview chapter, my sense is that Shallan's deepest secret is having murdered her baby brother/sister. Her first major truth is that she murdered her father. This was done in defense of others, because Lin had just murdered his wife and was on the cusp of murdering Balat and Eylita. Her second major truth is that she murdered her mother. This was in self-defense, when her mother and the Skybreaker her mother was having an affair with attempted to kill Shallan for being a Radiant. If the pattern follows, Shallan's next truth should also be a murder, but one with less justification. Lin was a multiple murderer who was about to kill again; if any murder could be considered "noble", this would be it. Mother was attempting to murder Shallan, and almost every person agrees that self-defense is at least a valid justification. Last one should be something unjustified, like killing the new baby because it was annoying or took attention away. This would also explain why Shallan's mother would be willing to kill her own child. If, say, six-year-old Shallan soulcast the baby into crystal one day, no one would have any clue what had happened. Shallan would at best tell wild stories about a sea of beads and a cold sun that would make no sense to anyone. Then a few years later, Shallan's mother learns from her Skybreaker that Shallan had actually done it - that might be enough. Mothers who murder their children tend to kill mostly or exclusively male children, and usually when they believe the husband has wronged them. It's much rarer for a woman to murder her children when she is unfaithful, although there have been cases when single mothers have murdered their children because they see the children as impediments to a new relationship. These scenarios don't apply in this case. It is much more likely that the Skybreaker simply convinced Mother that Shallan murdered her youngest child, and that Shallan was a danger to her other children as well (either directly or by causing the Desolation).

I'm surprised that no one has yet pointed out that Sja-anat has already un-corrupted them. They must be in regular working order for the Listeners to have used the Oathgate to attack Urithiru during the Battle of Thaylen City.

We know for certain that Navani, at least, married Gavilar for political purposes and it's fair to assume that Gavilar did the same. I would suggest that she's descended from The Sunmaker's line, but there are already a ton of people listed as his descendants on the wiki including Gavilar and Dalinar so they wouldn't need to marry into that line for purposes of legitimacy (although given the history of European royalty, it's very likely that all of them are descended from Sadees). The next-most significant historical ruler of Alethkar would be the Hierocracy, but given how the church's rule is now viewed even if we were to assume that such a dynasty existed it would not be a favorable political match. We can also rule out the possibility of Navani being a foreigner like Evi. The most reasonable possibility is that she was the daughter of another highprince, thus bringing another princedom into the kingdom, or simply the daughter of a powerful Highlord who brought either wealth, manpower, or shards to the kingdom.

It's worth noting that the other heralds believed that Taln would be able to keep the Oathpact on his own specifically because he's the only one who never allowed a desolation to start, hence even by then he had a reputation for bearing unbearable torment.

If you're worried about size considerations and you're able to unpack the archive, why not convert all of the images to grayscale in photoshop and scale them down to your reader's screen size, then repack the archive?

Most of the images in the books are monochrome, so I don't see any trouble.

A few dozen high-quality images will get you above 200MB easy.

Anglerfish?

This would be an excellent question for someone to ask during the next signing. Was Jasnah able to do these things because she has become so practised or because of the perpendicularity?

Not necessarily. Jasnah and Ivory made it clear that in proximity to Honor's perpendicularity her Soulcasting abilities were enhanced. Specifically that she found Soulcasting much easier to perform, and that the range at which she could Soulcast was increased. See her POV in Oathbringer Chapter 120.

I see Eshonai and Venli as more or less one character from a narrative perspective. The importance of a character from anonymous background character to main character, in Stormlight books, goes something like this: anonymous background < named background < POV interactive = interlude POV < non-interlude POV. We've seen a few characters get "promoted" so far. Moash went from anonymous background to named background to POV interactive through the events in WoK, remained an important side character in Kaladin's POVs throughout WoR, and finally became a main character in Oathbringer. The same is true for Teft, and arguably Rock and Lopen are also now POV characters. In WoK Eshonai was an anonymous background character. At the beginning WoR she moved up to interlude POV and Venli appeared as a named background character. After Eshonai bonded the stormspren, she became more of a named background character in her own POVs, and Venli's role became more POV interactive. By the beginning of Oathbringer, Eshonai was dead and thus permanently demoted to named background, and Venli had moved up to a main POV role. If you take the combined plot importance of the two sisters, it's roughly equivalent to Teft's or Moash's trajectory. In my estimation, the decision of doing flashbacks from one or the other is relatively moot. Each character did a certain amount of solo adventuring/research, but ultimately they're going to start and end in the same place. As far as the impact of the flashbacks, there will probably be more value in Venli looking back on her life and the decisions she made than Eshonai doing the same, unless Eshonai is still floating around as a cognitive shadow somewhere. This is probably the best solution.

Carry around seeds of some of the plants from First of the Sun. Just have to make sure you set them on fire when you're done or risk ecological disaster.

How long would it take you to summon a slug from your surroundings? They have effectively no senses, so you can't use them to spy or anything of that nature unless you want to strap listening devices to them. What are you going to do with your slug minions that would be helpful?

Ah, yes, the classic "what's the most useless superpower you can think of" game. My favorites have always been: the telepathic connection to slugs and snails, allowing you to summon and command them; and the ability to defy gravity but only under water. For particularly useless forms, how about Stoicform: no eyes, no ears, no nose, and no tastebuds, but you're twelve feet tall and indestructible.

We can rule out the possibility of the Sibling being a former Unmade that switched sides by virtue of the fact that there are still 9 of the Unmade in the modern era. Each Shard is associated with a certain number: 16 for Preservation, 10 for Honor, 9 for Odium - I'm not sure if we know any of the others, and Preservation's connection to 16 may only be a manifestation of the overall importance of that number in the cosmere. The connections between Honor and 10 and Odium and 9 are emphasized often in the SA novels: 10 is considered a holy number, and many things come in 10 varieties including radiant orders, polestones, and essences; 9 is considered an unlucky number and in addition to the 9 Unmade there are also only 9 orders of Fused. If the Sibling or any other major spren were created by Odium, it would only make sense if its creation happened before the beginning of the war and the creation of the Unmade.

There may be something weird going on with phpbb or whatever they're using for this site. Patch Tuesday was this week, maybe they introduced a bug. So I mis-remembered the order I guess. That does change a few things. My understanding was that Roshar and its ecology already existed in more-or-less their current forms when the Shattering happened, and Honor and Cultivation arrived sometime later to create humans like the original ones on Yolen on the then-lifeless planet Ashyn. Odium had already claimed Roshar and the pre-existing Singers, finding that their adaptation to the harsh environment suited his disposition. When the humans misused the Dawnshards and destroyed Ashyn, Honor and Cultivation moved most of them to Roshar, creating tension with Odium which was exacerbated by the humans' ensuing conquest. In this version of events, Honor (and maybe Cultivation) are the humans' "new god" which explains why the humans are already able to use surges and bond spren. If the order of the Shards' arrival changes, then the story changes as well. Honor and Cultivation arrived to find either an already-existing Roshar and Singers, or more likely a planet with only primitive life which they then modified and nourished, creating the spren to nudge physics enough to let them create creatures that would otherwise be impossible and making things like the weather more ordered. It becomes murky at this point, primarily because of the "new god" mentioned by the Eila Stele. The description of an "empty pit that sucks in emotion" is very similar to what we have seen from Odium and Ashertmarn with their enjoining of gluttony, lust, and other passions. This creates a bit of a paradox, however. Why would the Singers now be following a god that they saw in this way, and why would Honor and Cultivation have switched sides and backed the invaders? The timing and Shard involved in the creation of the humans and the nahel bond is critical here. Did Honor and/or Cultivation create the humans, or did Odium? Did the humans exist when Odium arrived or were they created as a response? Was the nahel bond a product of Honor and Cultivation giving preferential treatment to the sentient life they'd created themselves over the ones they'd inherited from Adonalsium, or was it something that Odium gave to the humans either because he'd created them or because he knew that they'd misuse the powers and destroy what the other Shards had created? There are far too many questions that result from Odium arriving last. Who created the humans and when? When and why did the humans receive access to the nahel bond? Why was the bond denied to the Singers until apparently very recently? Most importantly, when and why did the gods switch sides, with Odium adopting the Singers and creating the fused and Honor directly helping the humans survive the desolations, and why did the Singers accept Odium as their god? We're sure to get some answers to these questions in the next book, especially since Taln and Ash should both have lived through the destruction of Ashyn and all of the subsequent turmoil (assuming they're cogent enough to speak). But this thread is about Bondsmiths and the Sibling - hopefully we get some answers to those questions next year as well.

I believe that the Sibling being the third Bondsmith spren is effectively confirmed by the Stormfather in conversation with Dalinar. The Sibling being a spren associated with or created by Odium has some merit, based on the Stormfather's reaction to it in the same conversation, but I agree that it's more likely to be another major spren created by Honor, Cultivation, or Adonalsium. Based on the content of the second letter, in WoR, we know that Braise, Roshar, and Ashyn pre-date the Shattering and were therefore created by Adonalsium at the latest. We don't know for certain, but it is implied, that the ecology of Roshar similarly pre-dates the arrival of Odium and the others. This would suggest that spren, at least the ones that allow the greatshells etc. to stand and move under gravity and the Stormfather himself, are also that old. It is also the case that Odium arrived in the system first. It's not clear from the text if the dispute between Odium, Honor, and Cultivation began as soon as the latter Shards moved into the Rosharan system, or if it began only after the destruction of Ashyn, but there was at least some window of time when Odium could have created or invested a major spren that would now be known as the Sibling. Let's take a survey of the major spren that we're aware of, thus far. The Stormfather is a personification of the highstorm and manifests as a face dozens or hundreds of miles wide. He bears a cognitive shadow of Honor, but was almost certainly not created by Honor. He exists almost entirely in the physical realm with only minor reflections of his passing in Shadesmar. The Nightwatcher is a djinn-like nature spirit, manifesting as a giant grotesque woman. She refers to Cultivation as "mother" and can be assumed to have been created by Cultivation. We haven't seen her in Shadesmar yet. Ashertmarn, the heart of the revel, is an embodiment of hedonism which manifests in the physical realm as a massive beating heart. Like the rest of the Unmade, it was created by Odium. In Shadesmar it is an enormous crab-like monster at least the size of the Kholinar palace. Re-Shephir, the midnight mother, is an embodiment of envy and feral savagery which manifests as a mass of oily black goo that can form into any shape and bursts like a smoke-filled balloon when pierced. Has not been seen in Shadesmar. Nergaoul is an embodiment of frenzy and wrath, which manifests variously as an invisible country-spanning force or a thick red mist the size of a large city. In Shadesmar it also appears as a thick red mist. Cusicesh, the protector, is a massive four-armed humanoid formed of illusory water that covers an entire bay. Its purpose is unclear, but according to this WoB it's not on the same level of Investiture as the two known Bondsmith spren, and is therefore unlikely to be the Sibling. Moelach, like Nergaoul, manifests as an invisible country-spanning force. If it has any other manifestations in Roshar or Shadesmar we haven't seen them. The remaining Unmade either haven't been seen onscreen (Chemoarish, Ba-Ado-Mishram, Dai-Gonarthis) or don't meet the criteria (Sja-anat manifests only as a reflection and Yelig-nar only via possession of a vessel). We know for certain that Ba-Ado-Mishram has been captured in a series of large black spheres. The withdrawal of the Sibling dates to around the same time, coinciding with the Recreance. I would argue that of these seven major spren, each of the four unmade matches the level of power and impact on the world that the Stormfather represents, and Cusicesh is just weird. If we did assume that the Sibling was associated with Odium, then we run into several problems. By virtue of that association, it would be in opposition to the Radiants and therefore would likely not be related to Urithiru. The Bondsmith connected to it would also be in opposition to the Radiants, which would mean that one of the three fought for the Singers. This creates a paradox of its own as I can't reconcile one of the leaders of the Singers being a human surgebinder - I can't believe that the fused would allow it. These observations aren't concrete, but it's a fairly strong argument against any association between the Sibling and Odium. Given how successfully the Unmade were able to hide for two thousand years, it's absolutely reasonable that the Sibling is similarly in hiding somewhere. Why the Sibling would be in hiding, and why it withdrew in the first place, are currently unclear. The only things we know about it for certain are that it exists somewhere, it is extremely powerful and likely has world-changing impact when it exercises its power, and right now it doesn't want to be found.

So we've established that the majority of the vessels chose their names and have no wish to change them, that others do wish to change their names, and that the latter group is still called by the old names from the Shattering due to mutual consensus among the vessels. That still begs the question of why Odium's own followers would refer to him by a name he doesn't like (can anyone find a citation of a fused using the name Odium?) and why he introduces himself that way to people like Dalinar and Taravangian. Why would a god be unwilling or unable to tell people that they should call him by a different name when Toyotomi Hideoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu changed names like a half-dozen times each through their lives?

In Oathbringer, we get numerous instances of Odium and the unmade influencing people to either give in to passion or give up responsibility. According to this WoB, we know that Odium is not the name that Rayse would have chosen for his shard, and would have instead preferred Passion. This implies that the shards don't get to choose their own names. This is somewhat backed up by this WoB, which suggests that Sazed did get to choose what he called himself, but that the Intent of the new shard influenced the decision. Taking the example of Odium specifically, he seems to expend a not-insignificant amount of effort on trying to convince people that he's not what the name Odium would imply (God's divine hatred without the virtues to give it context) but instead the more neutral-if-still-dangerous Passion. There is the obvious reasoning for trying to make this distinction, that convincing people to follow or work for someone whose name is only a short step away from "I am evil" but it seems to be mostly the case that Odium just prefers the association with Passion. The characters' knowledge of the name Odium comes primarily from Honor himself and from Honor's cognitive shadow, but some of the fused refer to him by that name as well, and he uses it himself. The fact that a godlike entity can't simply change his name and call himself whatever he wants would indicate that he's stuck with the name Odium by some mechanism. So we know that the name Odium is not derived from the Intent of the shard, because if that were the case then after so much time Odium would not still be trying to be Passion, and we also know that for some reason the name Odium is indelible. That begs the question of who named the original shards (let's be honest, it's probably Hoid), and what form of power prevents the shards from changing their names to match their Intent or their perception of it? Is it as simple as Hoid passing out name cards at the Shattering? Why would Rayse and his closest agents use the name given to him by his enemies if he prefers a different one?