dilburt

If you are asking if the truthless that Thresh sold to Vstim was Szeth then yes, this is the assumption. I don't think there is a statement that directly confirms this was Szeth but there are lots of statements that imply this. D

Yes, this is what it looks like to me. That's when I started wondering what would cause a strong man like Dalinar to struggle so much over the death of his wife when he had lived with death most of his life. I think the answer is guilt which means he was somehow involved in her death. That's when I started thinking that it could be a lot like the death of Shallan's mother. Perhaps Shallan's mother and Dalinar's wife were both members of the Skybreakers... D

There are lots of clues regarding this throughout both books that show Dalinar made this trip before Gavilar was killed and that the purpose is related to his wife's death in some way. Many of these clues are contained in his thought sequences during times when he cannot hear his wife's name. Dalinar was a broken man the night that Gavilar was killed - he was lying drunk on his table while everyone worried about what his behavior might do to disrupt the party. Gavilar's death pulled him out of this. No, he made this trip during the time Elhokar was running things and locked up the silversmiths. Dalinar said he was "...gone". Also there are conversations with Navani that place his wife's death several years before Gavilar's. I think we are going to find out that he visited the Nightwatcher for some reason related to his wife. D PS. I did not see Moogle's post until after I posted this...

Another question I would like to ask is why Dalinar, who can seemingly face anything, felt it was necessary to seek out the Night Watcher when his wife died. This seems totally out of character for the man. Can it be that Dalinar's wife tried to kill one of their sons because he was "one of them" much as Shallan's mother tried to kill her? If Dalinar was forced to kill his own wife to save one of his sons, (or if he saw his child kill his wife as Shallan did) this might explain it. My guess is that it would have been Renarin and that if so, this may explain his "blood weakness" in some way. Remember that Kaladin was musing that something didn't seem right about Renarin's epilepsy and that he wanted to find out more about the cause of it. D

The concept of high storms in the Stormlight Archives seem very similar to the ash falls in Mistborn that were created to lower the surface temperature caused by incorrect orbital changes. Were the high storms on Roshar "designed" by someone such as Sazed who was attempting to correct some other problem that existed in the distant past or did they occur as the unanticipated consequence of some other force? Also, Syl and Pattern have mentioned things such as "The ever storm is not of us, it's of them" (paraphrased) which may suggest that the spren had something to do with the creation of the high storms.

This is the type of deal companies like Tor do in order to open doors to more profitable sales in the future. Apple gets a popular book on their "free" list to help them sell iPhones, iPads and Macs while Tor introduces Brandon to new readers and probably gets a better deal when they sell the next releases on iTunes.

Sadeas is definitely more trustworthy now...

Personally, I think it's great that Brandon portrays characters that have real emotions and real problems and find this more interesting than the characters in most stories that live impossibly trouble-free lives. Luckily I've never had depression but it was pretty obvious that Kaladin was being affected by the seasons which is a great twist on the storm-driven environment. It was also interesting how Tien could pull Kaladin out of his depression - I wonder if that is something that actually works with some cases of depression. Also, I think Brandon is focusing here and there as needed to tell his story and it's working well in my opinion. I don't think he will change the characters he is going to feature in the next book. I just want to vote for him to finish it more quickly. :-) D

Sometimes the simple answer is the right answer. I agree that Taln is Taln. There is no doubt that lots of strange things are going on but Brandon loves to stir up a good debate and the "...calls himself Taln" quote is probably an example of this. D

Exactly. After Taln collapsed, Wit probably sent the guards running and could have been alone with TaLn for some time. I'll have to look for your post. D

I think the answer to the questions regarding Taln are based on his experiences since the last desolation. He was abandoned by all the other heralds and left alone in the place of torture for 4500 years. That had never happened before. In the beginning of the first book when discussing their abandonment of Talenel'Elin, Kalak said, "He will not remain bound by this. The enemy. He will find a way around it. You know he will." The enemy (I assume they mean Odium) had free reign over Taln for those 4500 years and either drove him mad or changed him in some other way and he may or may not recover. Regarding the blade, there were only 3 people present when Taln showed up and collapsed - Wit and two lowly guards. Wit spoke the last words in the book, "I fear you may be too late, my confused, unfortunate friend." Wit knows where the original blade is. My guess is that he knew it would be stolen so he's hidden it somewhere and replaced it with a normal shard blade that looks completely different. Regarding the eye color - something else is going on with that. There are all the references to "life among the dark eyes..." and the vision of the "bright lord" with the scarlet cloak and dark eyes. It's possible that the honor blades did not change the color of the herald's eyes and that is why dark eyes were considered "holy" prior to the Recreance when the lower classes took over the abandoned shard blades and rewrote history. D

Strange, I'm not sure how that happened without me noticing when I posted it. Shouldn't play games and post at the same time perhaps.

I'm not sure that link referred to the interview you intended but I have seen a statement in one of Brandon's interviews that what's happening to Szeth is different from what's happening to Kaladin. I've yet to figure out where Szeth's power comes from if it's not from the spren (I don't think there are any spren in Shinovar). However, this was only a musing related to the Szeth vs. Kaladin question - it seems to me that both Szeth and Kaladin are far too important to the story for either of them to be killed in a confrontation when Szeth reaches the shattered plains. It seems that Szeth will need to join with "the good guys" at some point for the reasons I mentioned. D

I think something completely different will come from Szeth's trip to the shattered plains. At the end of the book during Szeth's meeting with Taravangian, he had a thought after learning that the King was killing all the people in the hidden room by draining their blood: Or I could kill him, Szeth thought, I could stop this. He nearly did it. But honor prevailed, for the moment. I'm not exactly sure what it means to be "Truthless of Shinovar" but I think this indicates that major changes are occurring in Szeth. I think the confrontation between Szeth and Kaladin will not result in the death of either man and that somehow, Szeth will join with them after achieving "Truth" and will be involved with helping Kaladin train his troops. The Almighty tells Dalinar that the Knights Radiant must rise again and I believe these will come from Kaladin's bridgemen but Szeth is the only living person who knows many of the techniques they will need to learn. Jasnah knows some of the other techniques. During Dalinar's final vision sequence in the book, he is told that he might convince Odium to select a champion and that a this might work well for him. I think there is a chance that Szeth may be chosen to face Odium's champion. Remember, Szeth has the dark globe which is probably a Dawnshard which was mentioned as an important factor in the same sequence with the Almighty. There is also something about the Nahel Bond associated with all of this as well. Is this the bond between the sprens and the Knights Radiant that gave them each particular type of power? Does Szeth have a bonded spren? Should he? Is this related to being Truthless? Jasnah mentions something about this to Shallan when she asks about the symbol-heads ("Suffice it to say that each Radiant's abilities were tied to the spren").. This is all coming together as Jasnah, Shallan and Szeth head for the shattered plains set to meet Dalinar, Kaladin, Syl and the others (Syl may play a very important role in all of this). D