XeGnome

I always thought of this group as a bunch of mathematicians reviewing historical record (farmers almanac) and making “best guess” from that and not a group with any particular “magic”. They do get the storms arrival wrong sometimes. but ... any group with any amount of power will not wish to loose it but only strengthened if they had someone with “fortune” to make their predictions more accurate. Take away the “need” for their existence by a bunch of wind runners with span reeds or just “ask Dalinar” where the storm is and they will act to preserve their jobs.

What I’m trying to point to is that these visions could be “bubbles of reality”. Fully functional three realm slices of time. I know Brandon has stated he does not want to have time travel in the books, but it seems like a possibility the way they are written that these visions are not “all in his head” like some shared hallucination. Could a person or a spren live there? Could objects be stored there?

As I re-read the stormlight books I have a question in my mind that I’m not sure has been asked of Brandon. Please let me know if a WoB exists? As I am in IT, one of the methods I use to ensure I have the ability to restore a server if something goes terrible is a backup called a snapshot. A point in time capture of the files and state that I can restore should I need. Dalinar’s visions seem to be a “snapshot” in time that contains physical objects that can be manipulated independently, NPC characters with cognition and some ability to react to variations of the participants and the vision has the ability to “bring in connections” to other people as well as the Stormfather himself (a spren in cognitive and physical). When Odium “attacks “ one of these visions it is as if he has to “break down” the event and then his destruction causes physical changes to the vision landscape. Could these visions be a segment in “time” that has a real physical place with the spirit memories of the NPC’s connected? A snapshot of all three realms? we know the Stormfather is reluctant to allow Dalinar to modify the vision but has some ability the “change things”. How far could that “envelope “ be pushed...? if this is true, I could see this “place and time” being used for various other activities such as a safe testing ground for dangerous surges or as a “private meeting” where spies would have a very hard time gathering information about, etc... I ask of the community to let me know if I’m on to something or just insane

I think there is a missing piece still: They are unkeyed. What if the donor of the spike is not “really” alive such that he or she is no longer sentient enough to know themselves. (Coma, brain dead, etc.) At the end of HoA, there sure were a lot of missing inquisitors from their metal strongholds ... what if they were not killed... A living stump of an alomancer with a buffet of spikes to be harvested. They could be kept alive and still able to be prodded into storing the attributes needed. Then the spike, as you say, is removed from the body by a machine and sliced up into coins.

It seems to me a certain cognitive shadow from a different CR would very much like to have a physical form again. How hard would it be for the “Lord of Scars” to convince and have some crazed Harold do some fantastic and ruinous experiments to see if it could be done.

In reading what Brandon “didn’t say” ... could the spren Of that type be inhabiting or gaining physical form through the constant use of the soulcaster. Ultimately transformed if the last soul cast was the death/replacement of the human. I suspect that if that were possible, the human would have perished well prior from the strains. It seems the “cost of magic” is high without a true bond with the spren.

I’m loving this idea. The “identity” of a blind person would not heal the eyes with Stormlight unless the blind person believes they should see. I have a personal fondness for the stories of Zatoichi. His skill was not in “seeing” his opponents but hearing them and feeling them move; but more importantly anticipating what a combatant would do against him. Some of the best senses in life are understanding what the world is and flowing through it untouched by its rage. Not being frightened or intimidated in a fight is greater than skill alone ( something our eyes can deceive us with )

Individually each KR is powerful and given time / training should be able to hold their own as an individual. I think their greatest strength lies in their collective abilities. Together they can accomplish much more than singular. We have seen so little on screen of them combining their talent together ( e.g., Dalinar & Shallan making maps real time, etc...) What can they do when three, four or better still, all ten orders combined to perform something truly astounding. I’m sure Brandon has some treats ahead...

Given if the assassin had not killed his father and no desolation, I have a feeling Jasnah would have carried forward with her intrigues and there still would have been bodies...

IMHO the oaths are a “connection” the spren makes with the humans sDNA. I think the spren came up with the initial number. With each oath the spren is allowed to bind theirs to the human. Lightweavers “oaths” after the first are truths .... I have a feeling they will need the same number as the other orders ( 4 more ). I also have a feeling that the oaths and truths are in fact infinite.... the deeper the truth and the more oath you bring to the bond, the deeper the bond will be. I don’t think we will see a “Super Radiant” but certainly a master class Radiant who has greater intuition about spren bonds and the use of their surges in ways that other Radiant will not be able to muster. example Syl: each time Kal “says the words” he has to “feel” the oath first. He has to believe it. Afterwards he “feels” stronger with Syl and they both show increased capacity. That strength has to be the healing done to he Spirit Web by Syl. ... if only Kal could just “...get over himself...” Lol My weird thought: multi spren bonding (as has been theorized) should only be available to someone whose spirit web is soooooo wrecked to have enough bind points to allow it...

The stormfather and all of the honor blades “may” comprise a good portion of the investiture of honor, but I have a feeling that a much more horrible sacrifice might be needed to bond “all” of it back together. I theorize that the spren will also need to be drawn into a massive Pool to then be “welded” back together. They comprise a large portion of investment. Tragic end to achieving a shard to come alongside Cultivation in a shardic battle vs. odium

A shard blade does not damage the physical body. There would be no “spike” or metal left in the wound. Right?

“I am a stick” how long did the stick “know” it was a stick. Was it a stick when Shallan “observed” it ( think Schrödinger's cat ) or was it always a sick, from a limb, from a tree, from... etc. a desert is many different things to whom you ask, but, didn’t Brandon say that outer space, while observed, would be empty for the most part. If people don’t live in a desert then the cognitive realm will be “scarce “ of spren to represent it. or would the desert just look like the seas in the CR

Summon cousins at will, eh? I don’t think he is amian and his cousins are part of his collective cremlings. Never see his shadow pointing the wrong direction. still a very cute theory ;-)

It is the investiture that makes all things work. Right?

It is strange, in my mind, that every radiant who achieved plate would have a “swarm” of Lesser spren following them around all the time (seen or unseen) until summoned during battle. ( imagine the mass of lesser spren at Uruthiru cognitive realm with hundreds of radiant living there ). There has to be some other bond that combines them together to the spirit web of the radiant. I cannot theorize how the Plate “survived “ the recreance except from a radiant who just took it off and left it like the blades with just enough stormlight to survive long enough till the next person picked it up and kept feeding it. My hope is the plate and blades dissolved over time from lack of care and feeding. If this theory is wrong, there IS a treasure trove of plate and blades somewhere. Yikes, Shin Super Army...

I was of the feeling Hoid was collecting magic systems... not investiture. My thinking is that “investiture is investiture “ regardless of what shard is wielding or molding it. All investiture is the same “stuff”. The difference between cultivation and preservation is only how the shard developed the magic around it. example is: Breath should be different from Stormlight but with a hack, of sorts, the two can be the same. Hoid is after some sort of “combination “ of the changes in how the investiture is manipulated after the shattering to execute his plan ( whatever that plan is)

Watching it ; I kept thinking... how the freq of the vibrations and the effort of concentration needed to make a city like Urithiru. It would take several Radiants to combine their surges to create it. Hvac, sewage treatment, power conduits, etc... all in one breath.

Chladni Plate experiment I take no credit for the vid but it shows exactly what Cabsal was doing.

Progression with dormant seeds. As the enemy troops pass over the seeds (unseen) the rapid growth traps them making easy fodder for archers. After the battle you just have to extract the dead bodies from new “crops”.

As an engineer, I like this theory. But I do think if it is true, the designers of Urithiru would have thought forward enough to have the gates function as an array especially with a hot spare or two. In WAR, you always want spare parts. If a gate were to be damaged or in need of maintenance then you would not want to have whole system go dark. There could have been more to the radiants “ locking “ the gates long ago ... they may have executed a full shutdown of all systems to prevent some greater tragedy. The new occupants of Urithiru just need to learn the procedure to start it up... even if it runs in degraded mode.

Long time reader, first time posting: I think it is interesting that the fused/Odium had Moash kill him. I mean, they knew the herald was there and had access to him but they needed Moash to do the deed. There must be something that is dangerous about the knife to fused/singers: Could there have been a “required component” that a human (or maybe something about Moash) had to do the stabbing. Could the danger they feared be they would have been trapped in the gem with him by using the knife?