ThatRedHead717

I have a theory I don't think anyone else has brought up. (I know! Shocking!! They're so hard to find these days with so many clever little theorists on this website.) White sand is bone spores. They are only mentioned briefly in Tress of the Emerald Sea, but I think there is enough to link these two together. I have 3 points that I believe confirm this theory. 1. "People can't even make up their minds of what color 'bone spores' are supposed to be. White or black? Or both?" What other material do we know of in the Cosmere that is both black and white? 2. Furthermore, the requirement of water to perform sand mastery is another point in favor of this theory. The Sand Masters are creating a Luhel bond without knowing it in order to manipulate this sand. 3. From this quote: "We always talk about there being twelve seas and twelve moons. But, ... I feel I should confirm things like that. (Tress) There are, after all, thirteen kinds of spores. (Fort) No there ain't. Don't you be spreading that lie (Ann) It's not a lie. Its a legend. Different thing entirely (Fort)" we can infer that Bone Spores are not native Lumarans. Their aether does not live here on one of her moons. So maybe the "legends" of bone spores are from brief encounters with Taldain's White Sand and the aether who creates it. This is probably pretty far fetched, but it feels like the kind of thing that Brandon wouldn't include unless it meant something. Why even bring up that there are 13 spore types but only 12 moons and aether? Why specifically mention that that spore type is white and black? I haven't real all of White Sand (just vol. 1, though please feel free to spoils them if they answer this question) so there may be some internal explanation of White Sand that I missed or didn't get to. Anyway, I hope you liked my theory!

I would argue with this as we see her wield at least 3 Invested Arts. She comes to the planet as a full Elantrian with access to Awakening and Breaths, then while on Lumar, she learns to manipulate spores. You may be right that she isn't scouring the cosmere for Invested Arts quite like Hoid is, but she certainly isn't shy about learning new things. Yall mention the Sorceress lightweaving over and over. I don't remember ever seeing her do that. All the magic we see can be explained by Elantrian AonDor and circuitry, Awakening, and whatever we call spore manipulation. Does she ever make an illusion? All I remember is curses and minions (both awakened and Midnight). Plus all the electronics like her security system and the shapeship castle itself. Edit: I missed that "the Lightweaving had fallen away, revealing a creature [reptilian with golden eyes and a toothy grin." So the Sorceress is most certainly lightweaving. I think this is explained through Aons though. We see Raoden cast lightweavings as complicated as this one, and that takes place hundreds of year before this. I'm sure they figured out how to make the lightweavings actually feel right in all that time. So that when Tress grabs his arm or hand, she isn't grabbing scales.

I don't think I have seen a fully Cosmere-aware timeline of Roshar so I decided to make one for myself and I'm also posting it here. Please correct anything I messed up! I love this world and I want to have the most accurate information available about it. Enjoy! Pre-Shattering So in the beginning, there was a capital-g God. And his name was Adolnalsium. Among other things, he created Roshar. He made the Highstorm and the spren and the chasmfiends and the Dawnsingers and little cremlings and shalebark. He made it all to work together perfectly. He made the highstorms, and the Stormfather, and spren; and he made them to have bonds with the creatures of Roshar. With chasmfiends that are too light. And with ryshadium, with the Dawnsingers, with lots of things. Post- Shattering And then, Adolnalsium was shattered and Honor and Cultivation came to roshar. And they kind of did nothing. They kept the status quo. They left what Adolnalsium had created, and they just let it flourish. Eventually, Rayse got trapped in the Rosharan system by Honor. Somehow. Humanity Then Rayse, Odium, went to Ashyn and he created humanity. Eventually, they found surgebinding and destroyed their planet. And, (presumably, Odium helped them with this step) they traveled to Roshar. The dawnsingers gave them Shinovar. And they lived there for a while. They planted the grass and strawberries and basically founded the Shin. At some point, humanity decided that Shinovar wasn't enough and so they expanded over. That was the First Desolation. For a while, the humans were winning. So the dawnsingers went to Odium for power and he gave them The Fused. Then. The dawnsingers were winning with Odium's help. So humanity went to Honor, who gave them the Honorblades. Now, with that power. The humans can fight back. There's still losing though. So, they formed the Oathpact. They make a pact to trap the souls of the Fused and the spren of Odium on Braize. Weird thing about that deal, the Harolds had to go with the forces of Odium to Braize. This means they could be tortured into breaking their Oaths (because humans can break their Oaths) and returning everyone on Braize to Roshar. They let the Voidbringers return to Roshar. The Heraldic Epochs That happened for a little while. The heralds would try to prepare humanity for the Desolation. And then voidbringers would slowly start to come over like we see happen in Oathbringer. Then, there's kind of a full-scale war. Like we see in Rhythm of War. At some point, humanity realizes that they're going to lose. They can't beat the Voidbringers this time. So they talk to the heralds and they're like, "all right, it's time. We're not going to be able to win this right now" (like we see Jasnah propose in RoW). To answer that plea, the heralds all die one way or another to all return to Braize together so they can keep back the voidbringers from Roshar. Eventually, they discover the Knight's Radiant, which helps in all of that. Eventually, the heralds decided that there might be a better way. So they leave Taln to fight for himself on Braize. And they all stay on Roshar and it works. For six thousand years it has worked. The voidbringers and Odium can't get off of Braize. The Era of Solitude The Era of Solitude is the 6000 years without Taln on the planet, from Aharietiam to the Coming of the Everstorm. The Rosharan records of this time are much more complete than the previous histories so it isn't as much of a mystery in the Cosmere what happened during the Era of Solitude. False Desolation Around 2500 years after Aharietiam, Ba Ado Mishram (an Unmade) Connected with all the Singers on Roshar. She gave them all forms of power, much as Odium did. But she was not as powerful as Odium so she was able to be trapped in a gemstone, severing her Connection with the Singers. This made nearly every Singer on Roshar into a parshendi. I say "nearly" every Singer because a group ran away just before all of Ba Ado's drama went down. They named themselves the Listeners and settled in Natanatan. The Recreance The Radiants had handicapped an entire race of people and that tends to shake up Oaths from people who consider themselves of Honor. Around the same time, Honor was losing his mind due to unknown actions from Odium. He started to speak of the First Desolation and the destruction of Braize. He told the Radiants that their powers had already destroyed one planet and that they would destroy this one. For those reasons, the Knights Radiant and their Spren decided to abandon their Oaths and their powers. This became known as the Day of Recreance. All bonded Spren (save Highspren) became deadeyes. Nearly all of the Honorspren and several other varieties were wiped out in a day. The Spren will remember this pain for generations to come. The Death of Honor We know very little of what caused Tanavast's death and the subsequent shattering of Honor by Odium. We do know that he was losing his mind in the time leading up to this. We know that he knew it was coming because of his actions regarding the Stormfather. Up until this point, the Stormfather was just the Spren of the Highstorms. A very powerful Spren but not directly related or Connected to a shard of Adolnalsium. But when Honor was dying, he kind of took over the Stormfather. Put some of the power of Honor into the storm. He left the Visions that Dalinar and others see before the True Desolation. He prepared for his death and the coming of the Everstorm. I believe Honor's death and shattering happened in the location that would become the Shattered Plains. I think that when Odium shattered Honor, it created such a strong force that the plains broke into thousands of symmetrical plateaus. The True Desolation Eventually, forces of Odium on Braize work around Taln. They create their own Everstorm. This storm acts as a portable perpendicularity. A source of Odium's power and a way for his troops to walk back to Roshar. This storm only existed in the cognitive realm (as that's as close as they could get it to Roshar while they were stuck on Braize). Then, they sent Ulim in a gemstone to the Listeners via a world hopper. Ulim worked with a Listener to discover Stormform and summon the Everstorm. This act caused the deaths of almost all Listeners. Then, the events of Oathbringer, Rhythm of War, and Knights of Wind and Truth.

"The vision" was just what Taravangian saw when Odium took him briefly into the Spiritual Realm. I think that when O shows T his plans, he is opening a tiny perpendicularity to let T see into the Spiritual realm and glimpse his plans. So when T grabbed Nightblood and stabbed it through Odium, he was stabbing the Shard of Odium. Not just Rayse. But yeah your second point is right. Nightblood only killed Rayse and not Odium because the Power of Odium is simply too powerful to be taken out by a "mortal blade"

Way of Kings: Windrunner, Skybreaker, Dustbringer Words of Radiance: Lightweaver, Elsecaller, Willshaper Oathbringer: Bondsmith, Windrunner, Skybreaker Rhythm of War: Willshaper, Stoneward, Bondsmith So there's a lot of overlap. Windrunner, Skybreaker, Willshaper, and Bondsmith are all shown in 2 books.

I have seen Herald Portraits floating around the internet in some scattered places, but I want to see them all in the same place, so I'm betting other people will too. I have arranged them in what seems to be the standard order for the Orders. Starting with Windrunners, then Skybreakers, and so on, following the Orders that share a Surge all the way around to Bondsmith. I have also included the Honorblades in the same order so you can easily glance between them and see the blade each Herald bore eons ago. Hope yall like this as much as I do ps, anyone know where the Battar portrait is? I couldn't find it.

I am gearing up for another read-through of Stormlight Archive after reading TLM. People who have read both will understand why I would want to do this.) And I want to have pictures of everything. I listen to the books on audiobook and I just love having portraits of all the characters and maps of all the places at my fingertips. So I was gathering portraits of characters and I found the Herald Portraits that are printed in the books. Except, there are only 9 portraits that I can find. Battar, who the Elsecallers were based on, does not have her own portrait in this same classy style. Is this a failure of research on my end? Is it out there and I just haven't found it? Or did Brandon have 9 portraits made and put into his book? I've attached a few of these portraits so you can see the style I'm talking about

That is absolutely brilliant. I love this take so much!! I've read that passage 3 times by now but had never thought to connect the idea behind those 2 events. This makes so much sense and I can't wait to see what happens next in the Cosmere. I seriously can't wait to see what a fully operation Bondsmith is truly capable of.

I am a hobbyist who makes many different things (contact me if you want to buy some stuff :). And one of the things I make is pens. I buy pen kits online and then make a piece of wood or resin that fits the kit. I found a pen kit that is perfect for Wax. On Scadrial, I could totally see him using this pen in his everyday life as a Representative of the People. A pic of it is attached at the end. It has a bullet at the tip of the pen which I think is perfect for him. In TLM, he talked about how he carries a gun in the Senate partly to lean into his reputation as a Rough's Lawman. I could totally see him using a pen made from a bullet with personal significance to him. He would love to have a tool from his old life incorporated into the politics and law-making of his new life. The ones I could buy are unfortunately not made of aluminum, but Wax would have nearly the whole thing be, made of aluminum. The bolt action would be made of a pushable metal so that he could open and close his pen with his steel pushes. The far end of the bolt hole is rounded so a single strong push would shove the bolt up and around that round section, then an aluminum spring in the bullet end of the pen would push it back to rest in the opposite position it started in. I could see him having this mechanism be implemented similarly to the pin in Vindication, where only he can use it. Still, I also think he would be super keen on handing this piece around and making other people sign documents with it so a visible bolt anyone can activate makes more sense to me. The wood would be either from a tree that only grows in the Roughs or from the wood used in his house or something. (My family renovated our kitchen a while ago and I have made several pens from the wood that was at one point the floor of our kitchen. He has had houses blown up and rebuilt and all kinds of stuff we probably haven't seen. So I'm sure there would be lots to work with I can see him wanting some of his new life built into the art section of the pen, besides just the function part of the pen (sorry I know this section says no Cosmere spoilers and that isn't a reference to Mistborn but some people will get it.) Basically, since the functional part of this piece is of his new life and all the surrounding bits (the bolt action method and the bullet tip and even the wood) are art that embellishes the functionality of a simple pen tip and ink cartridge. So If he wanted all of the art of this pen to be Rough's themed, we would use a Rough's wood to make it. But if he wanted his new life to be involved in the function AND art of the pen, he might use a city wood with some personal significance. TL;DR, Wax is a badass who now spends most of his time writing laws and being a politician so he needs to have a pen that reflects this duality inside him. The attached image shows a pen that I think does this really well. I could totally see Waxilliam using this pen right before and after the events that take place in TLM as his daily-use work-horse pen.

Steelsight is seeing the 3rd state of matter. According to this WOB, there are 3 states of matter. Matter, Energy, and now Investiture. A third Axis. That’s what Steelsight sees. Everyone can see and touch matter. We can also see and interact with energy in the form of electricity and light (via photons). and some lucky few can see and interact with Investiture. People who can allomantically burn steel or iron can see some of this through the metal on Scadrial. The few people who have gained MASSIVE energy with their allomancy (Marasi and Wax with the Bands of Mourning, TLR, Vin when she inhaled all of the mist but before she truly Ascended); these people can start to see *everything* with Steelsight. They can see souls and people. They are seeing the pure Investiture in the world. Shards talk about how they are Invested in everything in their world. Woven into the very bones of their world. This is what these people are seeing. They are seeing the Investiture of Shards in the rocks, dirt, trees, and people around them. Not just metals, but all things. And naturally, Shards can all see pure Investiture as well, as a part of them *is* pure Investiture. This same phenomenon can also be attributed to these characters seeing into the Cognitive Realm. That works too. It's essentially the same. They see the pure energy of stuff along with/instead of seeing with their eyes. That is essentially what I understand "seeing into the Cognitive" to mean.

I've seen a few posts about putting the Shards on a table similar to that of the Mistborn abilities (allomancy and feruchemy) and I have made one I really think is accurate. Given what we know now about almost all of the Shards and even one of the Dawnshards, I think we can start to draw some incredible conclusions. The Shards are complicated, but knowing Brando Sando, there is a logic to them. Lets figure out that logic and infer new information from it. Starting with what is confirmed, Dawnshards are connected to specific Shards. In the mural Rysn sees when she becomes the Dawnshard Change, we see Adolnalsium broken into 4, then each of those 4 into another 4. We can assume that this means that each Dawnshard is specifically responsible for 4 of the Shards. And we can assume they retain some Connection to those Shards (Connection is used lightly here. They're somehow connected. ) We see Rysn gain at least the 3rd Heightening once she becomes the Dawnshard Change. She sees more vibrant colors and can hear a musical quality to voices that she couldn't previously. These are ways Brandon has described the 3rd heighting. So from this, we can assume that Change created Endowment and still has some connection to it, giving Rysn the power granted by Endowment. It makes the most sense to me to break the 4 quadrants of the chart into the 3 realms and time. This means Physical, Cognitive, Spititual, and Temporal are out catagories, similar to the way allomancy and feruchemy are divided. But since we know that each Dawnshard is specifically responsible 4 Shards, we can also assign a Dawnshard to each of these catagories. Change goes with the Temporal catagory. We don't know anything about any of the other Dawnshard, but I would bet my hat that they follow this pattern. As for the internal catagories, I went with Inward/Outward and Increase/Decrease. These are intentionally vague and up to interpretation. I can't know the actual words Brandon might/will use for this so I just picked something. I can't find it now, but in a WoB he says that Shards are not self-changing. Cultivation isn't seeking to Cultivate herself and Ruin doesn't want to destroy himself. So Inward/Outward is not about the shard doing things internally/externally, but the ways the Shard influence the people around them. Increase/Decrease generally refers to if that Shard wants more of that thing or less of it. This one is hard to explain but it does make some sense looking at the whole chart. It's similar to push/pull. It makes sense in some cases but in others you have to stretch your imagination a bit I made a fancy color coded chart but I can't insert it in the middle of this text so I included it at the end. Here is that same info in a text only format: Physical Outward Decrease - Unknown Shard Outward Increase - Invention Inward Decrease - Autonomy Inward Increase - Whimsy Cognitive Outward Decrease - Dominion Outward Increase - Devotion Inward Decrease - Ambition Inward Increase - Wisdon Spiritual Outward Decrease - Odium Outward Increase - Mercy Inward Decrease - Valor Inward Increase - Honor Temporal Outward Decrease - Ruin Outward Increase - Cultivation Inward Decrease - Endowment Inward Increase - Preservation Physical as a category is hard to pin down. Pretty much all of the Shards are qualities of people because it was the Dawnshards that handled the physical stuff. Invention is the only one that makes perfect sense where it is. I can get behind Whimsy being and inward physical increase and autonomy being where it is. But it's hard to justify really The Cognitive section is stronger than Physical in my opinion. Devotion and Dominion are very close to each other symbolically so it makes perfect sense that they would just be one word apart here. They are how people think of other people so it makes sense they would be here. Ambition is kind of the same. It's a mindset that drives people to do things. Wisdom is not a confirmed Shard but Hoid does reference wisdom as if it is a person so it could be the 15th shard. The argument could be made that Wisdom belongs in Spiritual but I think it fits better in Cognitive. The spiritual and Temporal sections are the ones I'm most confident on. Preservation is hard to place anywhere because it doesn't want any increase or decrease but the other 7 placements are really strong. Valor is mostly unknown to me so so I'm going based of this: valor is doing whatever it takes to do the right thing; honor is doing the right thing, no matter what it takes. Both are internal spiritual aspects, but one is a bit destructive and the other constructive. The Spiritual Shards are generally ways that you can treat other people, but it comes from a very internal place. It's like the foundation that a personality is built on. That's why I think these 4 belong in Spiritual. They are the deepest down aspects of people and how they treat others. The temporal ones are more straighforward. These Shards have super long term goals and want to see things change (or not change) in really specific ways. Ruin wants things to be destroyed. Cultivation wants things to grow. Preservation wants things to never change. Endowment is a bit of a mystery but it has this same vibe. So there's my list. Please let me know if you think I was wrong about anything. I want this to be as accurate as we can manage so we can start to infer new information from it. Like what are the other 2 Shards and what do they want? How will Odium change Taravangian based on Odiums base Intent? How can we understand Harmony better by understanding what Ruin and Preservation are really truly about. What are the other 3 Dawnshards and how will they impact the cosmere going forward?

The only Order that might have any trouble taking down a tank is Truthwatchers. Every single other order has at least one power that can just immediately destroy any armored land vehicle. Windrunners can run in, dodging any missiles or pushing them away with a reverse lashing, and cut the missile to shreds with their shardblade. Skybreakers can do the same. They can't reverse lash but I'm still donfident one could get in close enough to cut with the Shardblade or use division. We haven't seen much on Skybreaker's division so i'll let their blade take this cause I know that could do the job. Dustbringers don't need to get close to a tank to mess it up. they can just be 100ft away and tear up the ground under the tank, then run in and slice to shreds. Edgedancers have it super easy. They will have no trouble dodging any missiles or the like and just have to get close enough to rip it to shreds with the magically shard and devastating shardblade. Lightweavers and Elsecallers can literally melt bullets as they approach so they do no harm. all they have to do is walk up to the talk and turn it into fire. easy peasy. Willshapers can stoneshape under the tank and lift them up by the middle so they cant aim or move, then walk up and use shardblade. stoneward can do the same but then they can also make the treads of the tank meld together so they can't turn, now they can't move even worse. Then walk up and use shardblade. Do I even need to defend bondsmiths here? Seeing as we have only scratched the surface of Bondsmith abilities and Dalinar can already do such incredible things, i think it's safe to say he could deal with one tank. I'm talking about a specific 1 on 1 encounter between a tank and a radiant but this is applicable to any battlefield where there are tanks. (Assuming we're on earth) earthlings wont just nuke their own planet to get rid of them so we have to assume they will use other methods of fighting. If you genuinly think that a group of radiants couldn't stand their own against our military, you're out of your mind.

When Venli first used her radiant power of cohesion in the Tower in RoW (i don't have specific pages or chapters) she has a conversation of sorts with the stones that make up the portion of the Tower she was in. They tell her that past Singers were able to dip sticks into the stone and pull up weapons and tools. They were mostly talking about how powerful the radiant spren and Singers were together and gave a few specific examples like that one. Willshapers and Stonewards are super powerful because of cohesion. I can't wait to learn more about it in SA5

I'm sure bondsmiths played a role in the destruction of Ashyn but I've always thought that it was mostly the Stonewards and Dustbringers. We don't see them on screen but according to this, the dustbringer oaths are about dealing with their increasing power with increasing responsibility and respect for their power. I think this is partly because of the damage they did on Ashyn. and Stonewards are crazy powerful when properly utilized. we haven't really seen that either, but their surges are among the most destructive. Bondsmiths are a bit of a weird case. I feel like the way they use tension and adhesion is just in vibes. Like year Dalinar can stick a bar stool to the wall to climb up to a high place but most of his abilities are just "uniting" in some form. Uniting the 3 realms with a perpendicularity. Uniting the broken pieces of Thaylen statues and buildings. I feel like Brando tries to make the powers fit the surges, but he figures out what he wants Dalinar to do first, then justifies it through "uniting". So we really have no clue what any other bondsmith is capable of because it is so subjective to each one. Maybe Ashyhn bondsmiths could have accidentally destroyed their planet. But I don't think that's really what happened. Also, the surge of cohesion is shared by Stonewards and Willshapers, not Elsecallers.

I disagree with the overall message here. I love all 6 SA books (including the 2 novellas) and I think they just keep getting better. That being said, I do agree with this: I wish someone else had bonded the Sibling. I get why it had to be her in the story but there are so many people on Roshar. why does this married couple get to make up 2/3rds of the most powerful order of radiants? and all their immediate and even distant relatives are also super powerful radiants. Maybe other high prince families could have gotten in on the action instead of just being the political intrigue side of these books :/