Hessi's Ward

While I am getting around to the idea of Prudence/Intellect as the final Shard, I will stick with my classic headcanon of Remembrance. It's related to the mind, can be related to anguish (because my take on the Intent is influenced by Weiry's idea of a Nienna-style Shard of divine grief), has a more passive and contemplative vibe which can translate into hiding and surviving because of remembering what has happened to the other Shards and the rest of the cosmere, and I love hitching this to other theories (mainly what the One is). I will be shocked if this becomes canon but I hold Remembrance dear to my heart.

I think it's more likely to be a Rosharan export. Imagine if Iyatil reports back about chouta and the Ghostbloods decided it's very neat and they should start a chouta chain for additional funding,

I'm not sure how I would gauge it but in my mind, it would contain everything from Allomantic lineage to how they manifest it to how they arrive on a particular planet if the person being Forged is non-Scadrian. It would help if the person being Forged wholly believes in the new backstory to help the Soulstamp to take.

I don't think Vivasher is particularly unpopular in the fandom, but it is a bit of a rarepair. I've seen shippy art for them and there doesn't seem to be discourse around it. I do think Vivasnah AKA Jazure (Jasnah/Vivenna) is more popular, at least on the Tumblr side of the fandom. So, if you ship it, go for it. May you find good content along the way. I subscribe to the take that they have a platonically divorced or divorced but never married vibe. This take is pretty popular in the Tumblr fandom though it's more a meme thing than a fanon set in stone.

Probably by making a very, very, very good Essence Mark and frequent application of said Essence Mark

I think Shallan and Shai would have a very interesting convo about artistry, identity, and their magic systems. We need a Navani and Khriss scene where they just nerd out together over fabrials.

We know that canonically the spren are Splinters and independent of mind to Honor (and Cultivation) but because they are made entirely of Investiture, they should still have been intimately Connected with him. I think Honor felt the Recreance intimately, not only because it was a mass breaking of oaths but also because a significant chunk of his Investiture was altered and became deadeyes. Moreover, while Honor was already going insane when the Recreance happened, it is notable that Odium was only able to Splinter him post-Recreance.

I think that's Shai's plan with her Way Out Essence Mark though she did encode a compulsion to reapply the stamp into it. In my opinion, the stamp taking permanently is the more likely effect of Forgery Savantism. I don't think it would prevent the person from changing back to their original Identity if the stamp is removed, however. At most, I can see it as the change being a lot more gradual than, say, if a Forged object has its stamp removed.

While I think the Alethi highprinces form an oligarchy, Alethkar is not a formal oligarchy and the oligarchy is not plutocratic. Though, under this definition almost every nation is an oligarchy. I see pre-unification Alethkar as something similar to the warring states of Spring and Autumn period of Ancient China. Basically, the princedoms are sovereign feudalistic states headed by the highprince and loosely bound by the concept of Alethi nationhood. I don't think this counts as an oligarchy because it's not a unified group with an agenda ruling a nationstate of Alethkar but rivals trying to devour each other to form Alethkar the state with occasional alliances. Post-unification, Alethkar was definitely a monarchy during Gavilar's reign because he doesn't seem to be keen on sharing power but the highprinces gained more power during Elhokar's reign for obvious poor leadership reasons. However, I don't think the highprinces could as a collective push Elhokar to, for example, ratify a law if there is even a political collective of all the highprinces. He may be weak, easily swayed, and the true power of the throne isn't in him but he's not the highprinces' puppet king. In terms of a true, formal oligarchy, I think Thaylenah fits the bill better. The merchant councils and high-ranking naval officers form a group based on wealth and military rank with the power to elect monarchs. Moreover, because the Thaylen monarch is the representative of the Thaylen guilds, it can be assumed that they're encouraged and expected to follow their agenda. TL:DR: Alethkar not a true oligarchy, Thaylenah can be read as one

I love all three POV characters of Elantris but Raoden is in my top 5 favorite male characters in fantasy in general. In the words of Tumblr, he is my blorbo from my books.

I think Ulim's type specifically doesn't suffer or suffer less trauma from moving between realms but it's inconclusive in the case of all voidspren. While Ulim's transition was unorthodox with the gem involved, we have a pretty probable example of this type of voidspren who transitioned the usual way: Yixli. She transitioned to the Physical Realm presumably through the Everstorm and she seemed pretty intelligent only a few weeks after it when she confronted Kaladin. I think this particular type of voidspren doesn't experience the amnesia of truespren because they don't require a Nahel bond to survive. After all, their role is to guide Singers, not grant a form of power. On the other hand, when it comes to voidspren that grant forms of power, I think they're more likely to suffer the amnesia. This is because like truespren, these voidspren transitioned to form Nahel bonds so remaining unbonded can cause adverse effects. This is all headcanon and theorizing so take it with a grain of salt.

I will preface that the existence of female Heralds is not only realistic but expected, in my opinion. From Tanavast's point of view, it makes sense that he also raised female Heralds as he knew first-hand what women can be capable of. There are female Vessels, especially Koravellium Avast who is his partner and settled on Roshar with him, who was as perfectly capable of shattering Adonalsium as the other Vessels. Most importantly, he did not have your proposed Ashynite misogynistic cultural bias, if that even existed, because he was not an Ashynite. He wanted a well-rounded team and if the best human in a particular field is a woman, who was he to deny her Heraldhood? From the Ashynite point of view, I do not think that Ashyn has a medieval sense of chivalry and, even if it had one, that it would survive the destruction of the planet. After all, Chana was a soldier and Jezrien let his potentially really young daughter be a Herald alongside him. I would like to emphasize the latter point as I believe Jezrien as the Herald of Kings, as opposed to Taln as the patron of soldiers and who was a commoner, would be the pinnacle of masculinity just like how kings were supposed to be a paragon of masculinity in the medieval era. If the traditional pinnacle of masculinity is down to not only having women suffer through warfare and later Damnation with him but also having his own daughter be counted among their numbers, what does that say about the culture if said culture is patterned after medieval Europe? What is more likely is that the Ashynite refugees have a shared appreciation for self-sacrifice and personal courage from having to survive an apocalypse. Moreover, we know that the Heralds underestimate how much suffering being a Herald would bring to them and as such, I think the immortality aspect of being a Herald was more of a selling point to them. This was a culture that must have lost a lot of knowledge from the destruction of Ashyn and knows that they will probably lose some more knowledge because of the early Desolations and that would make immortalizing their foremost scholars and healer an appealing choice. Plus, said scholars and healer now have access to Surges which included Progression and Transformation. They might not be warriors but neither was Ishar and they can significantly bolster the support system of the more martial Heralds and the soldiers. A pretty good deal for the society, a little less so for the Heralds. Who are they to stop Pailiah, Vedel, and Battar from becoming Heralds and allow inferior colleagues who happen to be male to take their place? For Taln in particular, I don't think his sacrifice came from a culturally ingrained sense of chivalry. It was just him being the best guy ever and having a very substantial self-sacrificial streak. If the Heralds came from a culture of medieval European chivalry, why would Ishar, who I will note is a male Herald, venture out and mess around with the Oathpact Connections to sever himself and the other Heralds from it and why would the other male Heralds except for Taln be down with it? That does not sound particularly chivalrous of them. All in all, I do not think female Heralds is a stretch of the imagination for multiple in-world and unmentioned Doylist reasons. N.B. I think Battar could have a Nale-style murder nascent Radiants as her madness or be his partner-in-(not) crime because her attributes are wise and careful which can lend itself to paranoia and utilitarianism.

Thanks for the link! Time to go down deeper into the hole! This is exactly what I think happens to at least some of the Enlightened spren.

Ever since I read the Sja-Anat interlude, a quote has stuck with me. That quote was said by Tumi and I find it so fascinating due to certain implications. We know Sja-Anat Englightens spren through mechanics we don't know but seeing it described as a giving of eyes by one of her children is interesting, to say the least. Is this giving of eyes metaphorical, the way shedding light onto something makes you see the truth of the object? Perhaps it's more literal--deadeyes are described as basically lacking eyes after all, and giving that most symbolic part back to a deadeye must mean a lot to said deadeye. I'm surprised no one has theorized about this quote and I want to hear your thoughts on the quote. Could Sja-Anat Enlighten a deadeye back to "life"?

I think healing into another ethnicity is much harder than transitioning if a person utilizes cosmere healing. As we know, cosmere healing works by matching up your body to your spiritual aspect. In the case of a trans person, the person identifies as another gender which then makes the spiritual aspect match the gender they identify as while their body is left unchanged. Cosmere healing then changes the body to fix the discrepancy between the spiritual and the physical aspect of the person. With ethnicity, while the biological change is arguably simpler on the surface, the spiritual side of things can get weird because yes, there must be changes to your spiritual aspect because now you have different parents, personal history, and cultural background too. After all, ethnicity is a social group that shares a common national or cultural heritage, not just the distinctive features, unless you mean healing into having features that will make you pass as a person of a different heritage but divorced from the cultural aspect which would be a whole different thing (cosmetic cosmere healing perhaps?). So if one can somehow heal into another ethnicity, it requires a discrepancy between one's perception of their ethnicity and the ethnicity they were born into. I won't be asking why the discrepancy exists on a case-to-case basis but I believe the cause and the person's background contribute to the plausibility of the ethnicity change. If someone has been naturalized into the intended ethnicity for a major part of their life, especially adoptees, I think that will help in the change because they have the Connections and context to believably construct a cultural experience that they have lived through though. If a person merely thinks of themself as being of another ethnicity without having a complete picture of the cultural experience, we encounter a problem. If the person can heal into another ethnicity, what cultural heritage is getting added into their mind and where did that heritage come from? If the heritage comes from an incomplete understanding of the culture, it errs on the side of Yikes as that will include stereotypes, cliches, overgeneralizations, misinterpreted bits due to the person's own cultural biases, and cultural components that are divorced from their contexts. If the heritage comes from the spiritual ideal of an ethnicity's culture, no ethnicity is enough of a monolith to have one specific spiritual aspect to Connect to and the person will need to choose a very specific experience to Connect to which can be hard if you don't know enough about the culture or its people in the first place. If our hypothetical person has overcome the cultural heritage quibble, there are a few other problems to contend with: We have never seen anyone being healed into having a different parentage within the same ethnicity and cultural experience using cosmere healing or magical mechanics that can do both healing and shapeshifting, let alone changing their birth cultural background. If, as you have stated, changing one's parentage is easier than transitioning, we should have seen an instance where that happens. As far as we know, there are no confirmed examples. Most of the changes are a more thorough healing of damaged tissue, restoration of lost limb(s), and the most extreme one, transitioning, is more like changing into one's gold shadow, still the same person of the same parentage but with a different set of sex markers that matches their gender, not an entirely new person born from different parents. Cultures usually don't force their members to physically and biologically conform. You can be naturalized into most cultures and be accepted without overhauling your entire body. Unless a culture forces that level of conformity or the person is experiencing debilitating dysmorphia due to not physically fitting in, the change will be unnecessary. If the person wants to conform to that level, a cosmetic procedure can do the trick without the whole spiritual mumbo jumbo part. If a person can canonically change their parentage and they want a full-blown ethnicity change, with added cultural heritage and all, then we encounter the magical mechanic quibbles, which are: A very large amount of Investiture is needed. They are changing their physical aspect while simultaneously fiddling with their spiritual aspect and that will require way more than a handful of spheres. A ridiculously specific Intent is needed. They are making up a whole new personal history greatly influenced by the ethnicity's culture. A farmer and a merchant of the same ethnicity live very different lives and don't get me started on a particular community's quirks' influence. This can get into Soul Forgery level of Intent specificity so hypothetical person better prepare their Intent. The number of new Connections one needs to forge. Not only is the person Connecting to how they see themself but they're also remaking their entire life from parentage to cultural background. The results can easily be botched. Perhaps the physical transformation happened and now the person passes as their intended ethnicity but their cultural background doesn't. Maybe they resorted to Connecting to what they think the intended ethnicity's culture is, maybe their Intent wasn't specific enough, maybe the Intent was specific but the details are wonky. If our hypothetical person can overcome the mechanical hurdles, in theory, they can change their ethnicity but the amount of work required and the still-present question of the possibility of parentage change. This makes changing ethnicity much harder, if not impossible, compared to transitioning. If cosmetic cosmere healing is possible, that person would have a better chance passing as another ethnicity by having magic cosmetic surgery done on them and delving into the culture they see themself as a member of though now there might be some ethics and moral quibbles. N.B. There is, in fact, away for a trans person to transition without having a full-on chromosome switch: the Investiture can change the presence/absence of the SRY gene and provide the hormones to promote the traits the person wants. While there are definitive markers of male and femaleness, it can get complicated because biology is weird that way. I'm attaching an infographic on that below for perusal purposes:

Why not Vargodium or Taravangium? No, I wasn't ready At. All. And the epilogue killed me and I am nothing but a Shade wailing around in disbelief.

Binding a whole Unmade, particularly Ba-Ado-Mishram, into a gem doesn't sound too easy though Re-Shephir was bound to one by a Lightweaver. The thing is, we haven't seen Ba-Ado-Mishram's influence in the current story afaik when she should also share Re-Shephir's ability to escape her imprisonment and influence stuff which indicates a very strong binding.

I believe Honor used the UNITE Dawnshard in his last fight against Odium and he's not sure whether UNITE would still be accessible when he records the vision. He couldn't have known the Bondsmith candidate is bonding UNITE one piece at a time and so he was also telling them to look for other Dawnshard which he knows are rare and hard to find.

My personal theory: the Dawnshards are CHANGE, SURVIVE, UNITE, and UNBOUND CHANGE (the ability to change one thing into another) Current Holder: Rysn Theorized Previous Owner(s): Cultivation who then hid it on Roshar. Connected Shards: Cultivation (change through growth) Ruin (change through inevitable entropy) Endowment (change through gift) SURVIVE/STAY (the ability to keep one thing the same) Current Theorized Holder: Kelsier Hypothetical Previous Owner(s): Mistborn spoilers below Connected Shards: Preservation The Survival Shard? UNITE/BIND (the ability to bond things together) Current Theorized Holder: Dalinar Hypothetical Previous Owner(s): Ishar, Honor, Nohadon Connected Shards: Honor (bound by oaths/contracts) Devotion (bound by shared desire/emotion/belief among people) Dominion (bond to the land) UNBOUND/UNRAVEL/FREE (the ability to break a thing's bonds and limits) Current Theorized Owner: Rayse who used it to destroy multiple Shards with mostly minimal damage to himself. Hypothetical Previous Owner(s): - Connected Shards: Odium (unbounded hatred/passion) Ambition (unbounded will/desire) Autonomy (freedom)

I think Honor was bound to UNITE after Melishi imprisoned Ba-Ado-Mishram, presumably died or broke his oaths, and the Recreance happened. The tower vision is arguably the last vision to be recorded. Honor thought that UNITE might be rendered inaccessible by his death. UNITE instead was only broken with the pieces attached to the visions, Tanavast's Cognitive Shadow within the Stormfather, maybe Nohadon's CS but he's a weird one, and perhaps to things with strong Connections to UNITE which I shall call relics (if Nohadon held UNITE and then write The Way of Kings, the book might develop a strong Connection to UNITE). According to my theory, as a Bondsmith candidate receives more visions and becomes familiar with the relics, they bond UNITE one piece at a time. When a candidate dies before fully bonding UNITE, the pieces fell apart back to their respective visions and relics. When a Bondsmith candidate finally bonded the Stormfather, they can gain access to Tanavast's Cognitive Shadow's piece. When they reach the Fifth Ideal where they become one with the Stormfather, they fully bond with UNITE, So, Dalinar has a significant portion of UNITE, enabling him to open Honor's Perpendicularity, but he's not fully the holder of UNITE until he reaches the Fifth Ideal.

Hello from Indonesia

I feel that too... Also, fellow international sanderfan?

There's daylight savings time

The joke answer: Pailiah was and still is a MILF The serious answer: Perceptions of Pailiah's appearance clash. The Vorins see Pailiah as eternally youthful and maybe Pailiah fights against it, seeing herself as she should be, a millennia-old woman.

So I'm Dea (a.k.a the person who sent the last one). To be fair, I was reading OB and I just took that one thing and ran with it and I would have forgotten about it. Also, I sent the clues right before making my 17S acc.