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Nalan has consumed too much stormlight over the millennia. Syl says too much stormlight is “dangerous.” We know it leaches the soul by lightening eye color. I think the corollary is that increased Investiture forces out emotion to the point of having “dead eyes.” My evidence is from the Taravangian interlude. Szeth is described as looking at Adrotagia “with those too-blank eyes of his.” Then Taravangian observes: “Those eyes. The tone of the man’s voice. A dangerous tone. What – “He spoke with emotion, Taravangian realized. That last sentence was said with passion.” Szeth, like Nalan, has used his Honorblade way too much over the preceding six years. He has used excessive stormlight. It has killed his emotions. Szeth's expression of emotion surprises Taravangian. The same with Nalan. Many of us have posited that Nalan was the Herald that returned for his Honorblade. Honorblades are inefficient users of stormlight, making them, as Syl says, dangerous. WoB is that Cosmere magic acts by “wedging open cracks in the soul by letting the Investiture come in, and it can open the cracks more.” The cracks in the soul let the emotions out, just as Investiture comes in. That is why both Szeth and Nalan have “dead eyes” and are emotionless.

My second theory, though I am not fully confident in its veracity. If your're familiar with TV Tropes, think of it as a "Wild Mass Guess". So, I am currently re-reading WoK again, trying to observe details I may have missed the first dozen times. It occured to me that an artist named Dandos the Oilsworn has been mentioned in both Stormlight installments so far. According to Kabsal, he was one of the great masters of pencil-art, but lived around three hundred years prior to WoK. Now, call me paranoid, but I've come to distrust any historical character frequently mentioned in a Brandon Sanderson novel. And so I have come to the conclusion that Dandos was one of the Ten Heralds, who apparently decided to take up an artistic hobby since the last Desolation. What evidence do I have to support this? Well, his full name is given as "Dandos Heraldin". So if any of the Heralds was known for his habit of taking up unimaginative pseudonyms, that's him. Discuss my tenuous grasp of logic below. I just wanted to be able to say "I told you so" in the event that this insanity becomes canon.

If you read through recent (and some not-so-recent) interviews, whenever the subject of man who showed up outside of Kholinar (henceforth referred to as Talenel, see below) is broached Brandon is very careful to make claims such as "you assume he is the Herald" or the like. This confused and upset me because I was very excited about reading Taln's viewpoints and speculating where his Honorblade went. Upon discussing this with some friends, we arrived at a tentative conclusion why. I do ask your apologies for this Doyalist theory. Please note full book spoilers. Brandon's insistent hedging on the subject of Talenel is to set a precedent for future appearances of Heralds. This theory has a bunch of pieces, so let's look at each part. First, we have the nature of the Heralds and their role on Roshar. The Heralds feature prominently in the second group of five books. Brandon has avoided saying too much directly about them so as to not set up expectations that will take upwards of a decade to see played out. Where they came from, how they landed their current job, what that job entailed, what they have been doing for nearly 4500 years and so on are questions that have yet been unanswered. From an in-world perspective, the Heralds are practically divine. We see now that they are single-handedly responsible for keeping the Desolations away and for the protection of the world right before. Many nations and peoples revere them in some form. Their return will see them lauded with power, accolades, and admiration. Second, we have the actual appearance of Talenel himself. He appears outside of the correct (for War, at least) capital city speaking the language perfectly. He carries a (Honor)blade that does not vanish when his concentration breaks. He appears just before the Desolation starts. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he attracts Hoid. In his interlude (and at the end with Amaram), he speaks of many things that only a Herald could know. He refers to the other Heralds by their real names and knows how they will prepare mankind for the Desolation. Granted, he seems to have severe PTSD and thus unable to orient himself temporally (hence refering to Ishar's Knights as something to be created and having existed for several centuries). There is also the subject of the Gift. Though I cannot provide a rigorous argument, I believe this to be whatever magic is compelling him to say his mantra about the Heralds. It is a Gift to mankind, allowing the Heralds to be located and brought together even though they might still be "out of it" due to torture. And it is never Taln's because, being the stubborn soldier he is, Taln always is the last one out of Damnation. Thus he wouldn't need to explain what is going on, someone else would have been there first. I find it very hard to believe, given the wealth of evidence, that this is not Talenel, Herald of War. I admit there could be subtleties and clues that he has been switched, mind-reformatted, or what have you, but I believe there is a simpler explanation. Third, we need to examine the nature of this Desolation. It appears Odium has been playing the "long game," as it were, waiting for Roshar to wear itself out before bringing in new Voidbringers. Sure, the Heralds are around and could try to mount a defense, but given the current state it would likely be ineffective. I believe we are going to see (in the next few books) at least one person claiming to be a Herald who is in reality an agent of Odium (or similar). They do not have the somewhat constraining requirements of Talenel showing back up, since they have been around this entire time. Instead, they have to show up at Urithiru and demonstrate whatever powers. This will likely be a big plot point, and so Brandon doesn't want to make it seem odd that this new "Herald" gets skepticism when the rest didn't. As such, he has to be consistent until all ten of them make their appearances. The simplest explanation is that Talenel is exactly who he seems and Brandon is being intentionally vague for other reasons. I want to make something clear - I would love to be proven wrong about this theory. It's uncomfortably Doyalist and makes predictions that are very far away. Instead, I would like to have a good understanding of why Brandon is wishy-washy about Talenel. Unfortunately, Talenel's appearance and actions fit exactly with what we would expect (without being "too obvious") and thus finding what is "wrong" with him has proven complicated.

We have WoB that we will see the Prologue chapter in all the first 5 books but from a different POV. so far we have seen, Nalan, Jezrien, and confirmed WoB that Shallash destroyed her statue the night of the assassination. There is also speculation that Nalan was talking to Kalak in the Prologue. So with the exception of Taln (or the man Brandon wants us all to think is not Taln) being the only herald that couldn't be there. Am I crazy? Thoughts?

Previous commentary has assumed that the Honorblades grant a rightful user the ability to use only the surges associated with the Herald whose Honorblade it is. Szeth’s Honorblade, which most speculate was Jezrien’s, gave Szeth Windrunner powers, but (as far as we know) did not grant him the ability to bind other surges. Is each Herald likewise limited to bind only certain surges, based on their respective Honorblades, or do the Blades grant the Heralds the ability to bind all ten surges? Alternatively, do the Heralds possess some inherent power, either derived off-world (where some in this forum believe the Heralds originated) or imbued as a splinter of Honor’s power? The text supports the theory that the Honorblades granted the Heralds access to all ten surges. Kalak observes in the WoK Prelude that “ [Honorb]lades were weapons of power beyond even Shardblades. They were unique. Precious.” Presumably Kalak meant that Honorblades’ ability to grant surgebinding powers elevated them above Shardblades. It’s odd that Kalak viewed Shardblades as actual weapons. Shouldn’t he have known that they were simply a form taken by each KR’s bonded spren? And, knowing that, shouldn’t he have realized that the nahel bond granted each KR powers equal to an Honorblade? Unless for Heralds the Honorblades, unlike the nahel bond, granted the power to bind all ten surges. When normal humans like Szeth use the Honorblades (assuming one could call Szeth “normal”), they were limited to the surgebinding abilities of the Herald whose blade it was. Ishar feared what might happen if each KR had access to all ten surges: "But as for Ishi’Elin, his was the part most important at their inception; he readily understood the implications of Surges being granted to men, and caused organization to be thrust upon them; as having too great power, he let it be known that he would destroy each and every one, unless they agreed to be bound by precepts and laws.” [“Words of Radiance,” Chapter 2, page 4, emphasis added.] Ishar must have felt that “organization” was necessary to preclude men from rivaling Heralds’ power. Otherwise, why bother? A KR already has power over other men. Ishar’s concern must be for the Heralds. Ishar’s fear was sufficiently great that he would “destroy each and every one” if each individual KR’s surgebinding ability were not limited. To leave even a few KR with the same full abilities as the Heralds would inevitably invite conflict between the KR and the Heralds. It is unclear whether the foregoing epigraph refers to Ishar destroying each Radiant or each spren, since the spren were the basis of the KR’s power. And we have discovered that the spren, like men, also had “precepts and laws.” Further, the antecedents to the various pronouns (“them,” “one,” they”) are equally unclear: the “them” does seem to refer to men, but the “one” and the “they” could refer to either men or spren. From Ishar’s perspective, however, the result would be the same – the KR would cease to exist. That each KR Order chose a “patron” Herald does not undermine this analysis. The epigraph of WoR Chapter 37 (“Words of Radiance” chapter 13, page 1, emphasis added) states: "Now, as each order was thus matched to the nature and temperament of the Herald it named patron, there was none more archetypal of this than the Stonewards who followed after Talenelat'Elin, Stonesinew, Herald of War: they thought it a point of virtue to exemplify resolve, strength, and dependability. Alas, they took less care for imprudent practice of their stubbornness, even in the face of proven error." The choice of patron Herald was based on personality, not surgebinding power. This passage says nothing about Taln’s particular surgebinding abilities. That again suggests that each Herald had the ability to bind all ten surges. It is possible that the Stone Shamans taught Szeth how to use only the Windrunner surges and that humans, if properly taught, could use the Honorblades for all of the surges. That will make Kaladin’s possession of Szeth’s former Honorblade very interesting…unless the Stone Shamans take it from him. I do think Heralds also have inherent power – Taln’s catching the darts with superhuman quickness (assuming it was Taln). But the power to bind all ten surges comes from their Honorblades. I will discuss the use of Honorblades and stormlight, which another thread has already addressed, on another day.

OK, tell me if this sounds crazy. There are two kinds of spren, nature and emotion. or (natural forces and concepts) Forces of nature spren are of Cultivation? and emotion/concepts are of Honor? Each Herald get's their abilities from a bond to Honor and each represents an ideal. (a concept) Each ideal granted the Herald two Surges divided up between spiritual and cognitive surges. Four got access to two spiritual surges, Four got access to two cognitive surges, and two got access to one of each. Spren were attracted to each ideal and because each ideal was a bond to Honor the spren "fed" of that bond and achieved sentience by becoming Splinters. These spren, that now each represented an ideal, started to bond with humans giving them surgebinding abilities like the Heralds whose ideal/Order they represent. (Surprising the Almighty) This would suggest that the power of Surgebinding comes from Honor. So what about Cultivation? Well I think her magic system is Voidbinding. (Binding spren that represent natural forces) I don't think that the spren involved in Voidbinding are Splinters, but I suppose they could be, but for now I'm going to assume they're not. So while Surgebinding involves sentient spren who make the decision to bond to a human who represents their ideal. I think Voidbinding works by binding a non-sentient spren that represents a force of nature to them (like stormspren) giving them abilities. =============================== OR The ideals the Herald swore bound them to both Honor and Cultivation (and the Herald's surge abilities, depending upon the Herald, are either of Honor, Cultivation or a mix of both) giving the spren that were attracted to that ideal access to the power of both Shards, becoming Splinters that way. Which would mean that Voidbinding is something else entirely. =============================== This is just something that I started to think about while reading Brandon Q&A's and I thought I share it to see what you guys think. So tell me what you think, feel free to added to it or tear it apart.

Was anyone else not entirely convinced that Darkness is actually Nalan? He didn't actually even say that he was--he just let Szeth draw his own conclusions. I mean, it's clear that the Heralds are capable of being selfish, giving up, and other human things, but Nalan going around and executing judgment on Surgebinders doesn't sound very Herald-ish. That along with giving Szeth (who's pretty crazy at this point) the most dangerous sword in the cosmere, just feels wrong. I have no other evidence to support my assumption, but I think Darkness is probably somebody running around with Nalan's Honorblade and delusions of grandeur (or nefarious plans of his own) or a rogue Skybreaker just pretending to be Nalan to further his own ends. Thoughts? Anything I'm missing?

We've gone too long without high quality renditions of the Herald symbols so I decided to trace the ones printed on the introduction page for each Part in tWoK and WoR. So far, there have been only 6 glyphs depicted on the introduction pages. If anyone knows where I might find a depiction of the other four glyphs it would be much appreciated so I can get them all finished up. Here is what I have so far. Clicking on the image links to a large png. The hyperlink connects to an svg vector file. Betab Chach Jez Kak Nan Shash I wasn't 100% sure which blades belonged to which Herald. What I listed above were my best guesses based on how similar they were to the KR order glyphs but if you think I have one mislabeled let me know. Also, If you'd like a photoshop file with all six glyphs, click HERE PS: Does anyone know if Isaac or Ben was the one that made the original designs for these?

I was looking for places where Jesrien might be hiding in the present story. If he has become corrupted, like Shalash who instead of creating art and beauty destroys art (especially statues of herself) and Nale who brings a twisted evil form of justice that appears to be playing into the hands of Odium by destroying Radiants, and possibly Pailiah who may be the ardent assisting Taravangian with the silent gathering instead of healing, he would probably have taken up power for himself but in a twisted way that instead of leading by example and inspiring he became a despotic tyrant that led in fear. One example that is mentioned in both books is the Godking in Tukar in Sesemalex Dar who is being worshiped by the Tukari and the Emuli. In tWoK an ardent mentions that he thinks the war between the Tukari led by their godking and the Emuli is really about control of the city and Kaladin flies over the city and sees a war in the area. In WoR we learn that Mraize doesn't think that the "creature" in Tukar is human or "at least not the local variety" and we learn from Mr. T's guard/master that the war there has gone on for six years. (I'm not good at siting and don't have my book.) This seems like something a twisted, broken, corrupted Jesrien would do. Set himself up as Godking and convince two factions to go to war over him. Now it's possible Nale is just a little off and truly thinks what he's doing is helping and Ash just really hates that people make statues of her and the rest of the Heralds are fine but that seems unlikely. Just my theory feel free to rip it apart, question it, or point me to someone else who has already stated it better.

There seems to be some correlation between the gender of the Heralds and Radiants, and between the Heralds: (opposite pairs) Ish - Bondsmith - Male <=> Pali - Truthwatcher - Female Jez - Windrunner - Male <=> Ash - Lightweaver - Female Nin - Skybreaker - Male <=> Battah - Elsecaller - Female Chan-a-rach - Releaser - Female <=> Kalak - Willshaper - Male Vedel - Edgedancer - Female <=> Taln - Stoneward - Male So far (almost all) of the Radiants (or Radiant candidates) seem to correlate with the gender of their Herald: Dalinar - Ish - Male Kaladin - Jez - Male (Szeth) - Nin - Male (?? Eshonai ??) - Chan-a-rach - Female Lift - Vedel - Female (Renarin : doesn't fit the pattern) - Pali Shallan - Ash - Female Jasnah - Battah - Female (??) - Kalak (??) - Taln Renarin is the only one that doesn't seem to fit the pattern (as always, Renarin never fits in with everyone else...) This seems somewhat suspicious. I'm also assigning Eshonai as a Releaser partly because her (assumed) comet-like spren looks kind of 'dustbringer'-esque (whatever that may mean) and partly because it fits the pattern best. Also, if we subscribe to Shallan/Kaladin (diametric opposites), another combination that follows the pattern is Szeth/Jasnah (from a meta perspective, their ages line up pretty well; they also seem to have one of the more interesting potential pair dynamics).

Ok, this is what I'm thinking after hearing what Darkness had to say to Lift about Surgebinding. What if the Heralds convinced the Knights Radiant that Surgebinding would return the Desolation and to stop that from happening they had to betray their spren to stop any more spren from bonding with humans in an effort to stop the next Desolution? What do you guys think? Feel free to pick it apart.

I sort of proposed this theory in another thread, but wasn't ready to commit to it at the time. I still can't come up with a better idea. So here it is: Gaz is a Herald. As I've been puzzling over Gaz's disappearance, I've always been struck by the following quote: page 473: It makes me wonder exactly how old Gaz is. This seems to be a really important thing to be said. It sounds like he feels like he's worthless because he gave up on his honor and he doesn't deserve a better life than he has right now. It would also make his statement about ending up in a bridge crew very telling. What would happen to a herald who died a normal death? Would he end up in damnation? that would be plenty of motivation to leave the armies at the Shattered Plains. Being a bridge sergeant was relatively protected. Gaz = Herald could impact the motivations of other many other characters including Hoid. Which Herald is he? I don't know. If Vev is female, it can't be her, despite the connection to the eyes. If Jezrien is in the WoK prologue, then I'd guess Ishtar. Thoughts?

I would like to propose a theory... We have a group of individuals that are directly involved with living after death: the Heralds. What if the death chants are a window into the minds of the Heralds, or something like that? I only thought of this after thinking on this thread for a while. This was the quote in question: “All is withdrawn for me. I stand against the one who saved my life. I protect the one who killed my promises. I raise my hand. The storm responds.” The Heralds clearly all have a screw loose now, which was my reasoning for considering them for this quote. It would make sense if it was connected to someone who had recently experienced a paradigm shift of sorts. My first thought was that this was a quote from one of the Heralds relating to the Shards on Roshar, so I kind of built on that. "All is withdrawn from me." could be talking about his powers or whatever changed when he gave up his blade and broke his oath. "I stand against the one who saved my life." He has a history with Honor, which we assume started off pretty well considering Jezrien is a Herald. "I protect the one who killed my promises." The Oathpact is the biggest promise I can think of, and that thing was butchered. If Odium was responsible for that dissolving - pretty likely - this would make sense considering the Heralds' erratic behavior. "I raise my hand. The storm responds." The Heralds may have had the power to control the storms or it may be figurative, but I think most users here have taken the stance that it is set to mean either control of highstorms or control of Stormlight, both of which are believed to be possible by at least one Herald. This death chant is clearly from the mind of Taln, no? “The burdens of nine become mine. Why must I carry the madness of them all? Oh, Almighty, release me.” I think this one is obviously about Shallash as well. She is the daughter of Jezrien and we think we see her scratching out her own image. I'm sure it has been discussed somewhere... “A woman sits and scratches out her own eyes. Daughter of kings and winds, the vandal.” As a continuation, it may be that the images on the arches represent the Herald speaking, or the audience of the quote (in addition to those that may appear in the chapter or other causes). Was going to post some of this in the thread linked above, but it got so long and off track, I figured I would be jacking thread a bit xD Any thoughts?

There is so much information on Shardblades that is hard to keep track of what we know and don't know, so I will phrase this theory as more of a question and request for information. If I'm correct, we see only a couple scenes where someone is using a shardblade that we know to be their own. For sure the prologue, where the Heralds summon their blades and drive them into the ground. Possibly the Feverstone Keep scene where the KR summon their blades to drive them into the ground as well. Every other Shardblade that we see in the series is borrowed/stolen/passed-down or whatever. A popular theory seems to be that new blades will be created through the Nahel bond after a certain amount of Ideals. If not that, the only other alternative is that Honor (+friends?) gave every Shardblade to mankind and that is the set amount that exist in the world - making them all hand-me-downs. My follow up thought is based on some pretty weak evidence, but was just a theory for sport: We see the Heralds summon their blades in the prologue, and the process seems instant. We are in Kalak's mind, and he does not give any hint of waiting for 10 heartbeats which is present in every other POV summon. The KR also seem to summon their blades instantly, though there is really no telling whether or not they were waiting 10 beats beforehand. The Heralds piece would lead me to suggest that maybe Honorblades don't have to wait 10 beats (I don't like this theory because I think Szeth has one). The KR portion opens it to all Shardblades - assuming they were created for the individual KR, perhaps shard-weapons only require those beats if they are borrowed or handed down from the individual that created them. There would no longer be a Nahel bond to speed it up (or whatever the Heralds have as well), and I'm not sure what would be occurring during those 10 beats, but it feels like it would be patching through some sort of work around bond. Do we have an explanation for any of these details? I know the evidence is weak, but that isn't the point of this one.

I had a thought as I was reading some speculations on honorblades here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/4883-new-info-on-honorblades/?hl=honorblades And wondered if Jezrien remained behind in alethkar and helped found the kohlin noble family. Their color schemes match, blue and white, and they forge alethkar into a coherent kingdom, taking after Jezrien's honorable leadership qualities. This isn't the most substantial evidence, but worthy of at least being speculated on. Also I feel the brief description of Jezrien in the prologue of WoK was fairly reminiscent of Dalinar. "The figure in white and blue glanced toward him. Even after all these centuries, Jezrien looked young, like a man barely into his thirtieth year. His short black beard was neatly trimmed, though his once fine clothing was scorched and stained..." "[Dalinar] rode with his helm tied to his saddle! exposing a square face topped by short black hair that had gone white at the temples... His nose was the wrong shape, his feature blocky rather than delicate. It was the face of a warrior."

I was thinking on the "Heralds don't have accents" idea, which has been proposed before. Talenel'Elin is confirmed not to have "a hint of an accent" - Pg 1001, and there is at least one other person described exactly the same way, the Azish-looking man on Pg 746. I was thinking about why that is, and I was getting annoyed at Brandon. "There is no such thing as having no accent", I thought to myself, "that would mean that there is a standard of the language by which to judge! But of course there are no Platonic forms for language ..." Then I stopped, took a moment to consider, and smiled. I think that the Heralds learn languages directly from Shadesmar. Languages exist cognitively, but not physically, and so might live in the Cognitive Realm. There, a language becomes what people think it is. A Herald therefore directly interfaces with any language they need Cognitively, gaining complete fluency and having no accent, as they are channeling the "true" form of the accent. Thoughts?

So I'm sure someone has noticed this before, so I really want to point it out-- I noticed from before WoK came out, that Brandon mentioned his plan of 10 books in the series. 10 books? I'd think to myself. Why? That seems like such a random number - how can an author have such a good idea in advance how many books his story is going to take? What if, in the process of writing the story, something doesn't work so he has to cut things out? Or, what if more likely, in the process of writing he finds a character or side story or two that are so compelling he has to include them, and the story lengthens in size? So from the beginning, I couldn't think of very good reasons for Brandon to state that he was planning on 10 books, nor why he would bother to share that specific detail. Why not just say, "this is going to be a long story and cover several novels" and not pin himself down. But then, after I finished WoK, I thought about it some more, and realized that there were 10 Heralds. What if each book in the Stormlight Archive corresponds to one of the 10 Heralds? So WoK would be: Jes / Jezrien / Protecting / Leading The next Words of Radiance, could be: Nan / Nalan / Learned / Giving (or perhaps Betab / Battar / Wise / Careful, if that Herald corresponds to Jasnah) Thoughts? Has anyone else noticed this or has it been pointed out before? Seems like each of the novels could correspond to those themes. (or the story of the main character therein)

Hey guys, I've been skimming over the associations between the 4 developing Knights Radiant we've seen (including the one from the WoR interlude) and the Heralds. It makes sense that they seem to have matching character attributes (e.g. Kaladin clearly has Jezrien's "Divine Attributes" of protecting/leading), but I noticed that all 4 Knights also match the genders of their respective Heralds. I want to throw a few ideas around for discussion: Brandon's mentioned that we've met multiple Heralds already, beyond the opening chapter in WoK. Is it possible that there's some reincarnation or amnesia element that could make one of our main characters an actual Herald without us knowing? If this gender aspect is, in fact, not just by chance, it opens the way for new guesses on people who could develop into Radiants. Note that there can only be one new female character that becomes a Knight (since we've got 3 female Radiants already out of the 4 female Heralds), and that person would have to match the attributes of Chach (bravery/obedience) I haven't seen anything that completely nails down the mechanics of how spren are involved in the evolution of a Radiant, but does it matter that Syl is female while Kaladin is male?

One of the mysteries presented to the reader in the prelude to the Stormlight Archive is the nature of the Oathpact that is broken by the Heralds. A possible reason behind this pact occurred to me recently and it relates to a particular well known story from the Bible, the story of Job. To those not familiar with said story: Job is a very prosperous man who is both righteous and pious. God is very proud of Job but Satan claims that Job is only righteous because he is so sheltered. Satan wagers with God that if he were to take everything away from Job then he would not be so pious. God takes the wager and allows Satan to do what he wants short of taking Job's life. Satan tries everything but fails to get Job to curse God. The possible parallel with the Oathpact lies in the deal between two deities with people caught in the middle. In the Almighty's last message to Dalinar he says that it might be possible to get Odium to choose a champion. This implies that it is possible in some circumstances to make deals with Odium and so it might not be ridiculous to conjecture that deals have been struck in the past. There is also precedent for deals between two opposing Shards in Brandon's other Cosmere books. If the Almighty is Honor as many suspect then maybe Honor and Odium made a wager on whether humans could be broken and made to discard their honor for selfish reasons. This would explain why the Heralds had to endure torment between desolations, this was a test of how long they could last. Furthermore, if Honor and Odium made this deal then, presumably, a lot rode on the outcome. Possibly even the fate of the Shards and of Roshar itself. If this was the case then that would mean that 9 out of 10 Heralds forsaking the Oathpact would deal a crushing, possibly fatal, blow to Honor. I have seen it noted that, curiously enough, the Heralds don't mention Honor and only mention the Almighty in passing. Comparing this to the story of Job then this might mean that the Heralds were unaware of this wager and only thought that they were defending humanity from the desolations when the real battle was for their virtue. This only just occurred to me and I couldn't find any mention of this parallel being drawn anywhere so I decided to post it. I hope I'm not just reposting something that has already been discussed.

Ok, so this is a little extra speculation based on the new information that Honor was suprised by the formation of the KR and that the Heralds were a little bitter with Honor and blamed him for their situation. ((Note: I have not heard the reading, only seen this talked about on the boards so if I have misinterpreted, please let me know)) This theory makes the assumption that the KR only fought in 1 Desolation (the one that ended in the Prologue to WoK). Obviously I have no evidence of this as we do not know exactly when or how the KR were formed. Basically the assumption is that Dalinar's vision of Nohadon is after the end of the desolation before the one ending in the prologue. In the intervening years, Nohadons writes his book and might (or night not) do some vajazzle with a dawnshard to bind surgebinders to oaths. Ultimately the KR are formed in time to fight in the 'final' desolation. Now, my basic theory goes like this: The Heralds have been dying and being tortured for uncounted generations and are quite bitter about it. They blame Honor (at least partially) for putting them in their current situation. However, generally they know their duty to mankind. Then they return for the desolation and find (much to their suprise) a highly trained, fighting fit, surgebinding paramilitary group ready and willing to fight with them against the forces of darkness. Suddenly the prospect looks less bleak and a crack of hope rises. They start to think that they may finally defeat the enemy. IIRC Kalak comments that despite the fighting being more fierce, less of them (Heralds) died this time. I think Jezrien even argues that the KR will be sufficient in the future. So I think it was (at least in part), the presence of the KR that led to them abandoning their blades. It is one thing to sacrifice your soul and body to defend a nation of farmers who would otherwise be wiped out. Another to do it for a nation of farmers defended by an elite military group. Maybe this is not really new, but for me the information that the Heralds were blaming Honor is really interesting. How must they feel now? Knowing that their actions probably led, ultimately, to his death / splintering!? ((Note, I am not saying there is a direct causal link, but I bet that is how the Heralds feel))

I've been trying to search just to make sure if anyone has brought this up yet, but I haven't seen anything. If someone has, I'd love a link to the topic. I want to point out that I only just discovered this wonderful website this past week. I've been reading/gobbling up all the theories and WoB voraciously, but I obviously haven't read everything yet. Still, it was bugging me that I noticed this and hadn't seen anything about it, so I'm going to post it. I don't have the annotations for all of the information, although I know for sure that I've read them in the past few days. Please forgive my lack of evidence for some statements. I was looking at a picture of the colored front page of TWoK that shows the 10 surges/Heralds and their faces and symbols, along with the odd dragonwasp-things. (I found an image via Google here: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121114044819/stormlightarchive/images/c/c7/Knights_Radiant_and_the_ten_Surges.jpg). I was already beginning to think that the ten heralds and the KR and the different surges can probably be further categorized because of Navani's notes (http://coppermind.net/w/images/Navani2.jpg). The bottom image labels each of the ten jewels in the double-pupil (I forget the proper name for that formation, and surprisingly Coppermind doesn't have it listed that I can find), and I noticed that the top are all related to love while the bottom are all related to hate. Also, it seems the ones on the left are somehow related and the same for the ones on the right. The jewel placement obviously lines up with the Heralds' symbols in the first image from the front inside cover. I noticed that each of the symbols of the surges line up with a face on the outline (I'm sure people have noticed this) and also that each of the KR order symbols on the inside (they have to be) have lines connected to two of the surges, which makes sense since the different orders were said to be able to access two kinds of magic, correct? I don't have an annotation for this one, but I'm sure I read that. The one in the upper right hand corner is Jezrien 1) because the face is of a man with a crown and 2) the surge symbol associated with him is part of the symbol for Jezrien's shardblade. This got me to wondering how each of the 10 surges may be similarly related/categorized. Each of the surges also has a line that connects it to the one directly across from it, so Jez's surge symbol is connected by a line to the surge in the bottom left corner, etc. Each connection is between one man and one woman, meaning that the Heralds had 5 men and 5 women. I was looking at them all and realized that the top half is all men and the bottom half is all women (also can't help wondering if Navani's image has them switched/upsidedown, since I would associate women with love and men with hate, or even if Navani has general terms that are only partially correct). But then I realized that the categorization is very similar to the table of Allomantic Metals. Each of those are categorized, and are put into four quadrants in a similar way that the surges/jewels seem to logically be divided into four quadrants (http://images.wikia.com/mistborn/images/0/04/Table_of_Allomantic_metals.jpg). Could this possibly be a connection between the magic systems? Also, it really bothered me when I realized that Kaladin's symbol (seen on the big image here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3091-not-a-herald/) looks like either Lerasium's or Zinc's Allomatic symbol (especially Zinc's). Is this just a coincidence? Especially because Zinc is in the upper right-hand corner of the Allomatic table, just as Jezrien's surge is... I'm less convinced about the Kaladin connection than I am with the connection between the two charts. Also, perhaps this is somewhat off-topic and maybe has even been discussed, but do the Allomatic symbols seem to have spikes driven through them? Are the symbols actually some sort of Hemalurgic guide to illustrate the type and placement of spikes in order to extract that particular ability?

One of the first things that caught my attention when I read TWoK was this: The idea that the Heralds actually had to travel somewhere to go back to Damnnation surprised me. This obviously isn't in a place that can be easily accessed, being so alien to the way Roshar is described. Obviously somewhere off-world or at least far away from the main Rosharan supercontinent. And we haven't heard any indication of the Heralds having to journey back to Damnation after the Desolations. It seems fairly clear to me that there has to be some other way to get to Damnation. So, I think that the Heralds have access to Shadesmar and the knowledge of how to Worldhop. We know little of their abilities at this point, so it's at least plausible. It would certainly be useful in coordinating a worldwide defense against the Voidbringers. They can easily return to Damnation, be it on Roshar or elsewhere. Another point in favor is that, to Worldhop you go to Shadesmar. When Heralds die they automatically return, and we know that Shadesmar is where people seem to be going when they die, so that ties together quite nicely. I wouldn't even be surprised if the Travel surge was based off a similar principle. I know this is kind of an insignificant, rinky-dink theory, but what do you guys think?

Is Talenel the Herald of Honor? If so, he shows up in Kaladin's story, and Kaladin has Honorspren. IF this is correct, then perhaps each Herald will show him or herself in each book. I know it's holey, but maybe?