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  1. So now that Taravangian has Ascended, what happens to his boon/curse? If he is free of it, will his release from the boon/curse be his downfall? We know that he lost to Odium merely to save Kharbranth, specifically his own family and grandchildren (whom he also spared of any details concerning his political plotting). Cultivation made it so that his intelligence and empathy would be inversely related on any given day, so if he acts with intellect and empathy/passion, will he break down at the end of Book 5 because of needing to save his grandchildren in one scene? We know at the end of RoW, he's drinking in all this power and blinding everything else out, including Cultivation's offer to guide and teach him. So maybe in Book 5, we see that overwhelming amount of knowledge clear up as he accesses his deep emotion for his own family. Selfish, but it might just save Roshar—and "save them all"—from Odium. Thoughts?
  2. Disclaimer: I originally posted this theory as a response to another topic, I worked on it some more, but some of this post will be verbatum from that I was looking through everything Lift-related to try and make up my mind on what could explain... well Lift. While there's clearly something important weird about Lift's origin before her visit to the Nightwatcher, I don't think we have enough data to theorize about that, but I do have an idea what happened with the Nightwatcher, and, yeah, you read the title To show you I got there, I'll copy here the evidence that I found most relevant (I took notes notes Jasnah style) and then just summarize "my findings" and explain how I connected the dots. I'll be using Spoiler tags for spacing, and I bolded the snippets that I found most interesting, all the relevant info in the quotes is repeated in my final thoughts 1) WOBs on what Lift is\her origin 1) WOBs on the mechanics of Lifts powers 3) General info on Nightwathcer, Bondsmiths and multiple Naheel bond: So to summarize what's in the info I looked through and just some known facts: Lift is something very special only possible through an act of Cultivation, result of meddling with her spirit web. What she is and how she is however fits within a certain mechanic and is not a one-off thing, but Cultivation's experiment on her is a first on Roshar. Wyndle guesses she has a stronger connection to the spiritual realm, which makes sense in how for instance she can see Szeth's afterimage, and touch spren. This connection to the spiritual realm is probably related to how she is slightly different from other radiants (at least in how she would react to a dead shardblade). Still Wyndle bonded her as he would have a normal radiant, though the decision was made because she had been touched by Cultivation. She can only burn foods (not metals) and transforms the resulting energy as lifelight, with mechanics much like those of getting energy from digesting sugar. She does generate the investiture from the food, not quite like metals (allomancy) work though there's a similarity there. Finally, we know that she asked the Nightwatcher: I put this together with the fact that Bondsmiths can generate their respective lights for personal use, with not clear mechanics, and with the fact that the Nightwatcher is different from other spren, in how she's disconnected from human perception and thus more unchanging. So back my thesis: Lift has been bonded to the Nightwatcher since she was ten, and is already the third Bondsmith This explains how she can self-generate Lifelight, which as far as we know is only possible for the Nightwatcher's Bondsmith. We know that it is possible to bond multiple sprens, and we know that Cultivation is very capable of meddling with one's memories, so it's easily explainable how she could be bonded to both her and Wyndle without knowing it. With what we know about surges, it makes sense she can't do Bondsmith things beside istinctive Light generation until she's aware of what she can do. There's a lot of wiggle room on the details on how her Connection to the spiritual realm and not-aging, as we know Cultivation ultimatly gives boons and curses as she pleases, so anything is fair game. From a thematic perspective, the Nightwatcher's "untied to human perception" nature works well with Lift's boon request to be unchanging when everything else does. Tt would also make sense that the Nightwatcher's Bondsmith would have a stronger focus on the Cognitive realm and spren, as she is less connected to the Physical, this expelaining Lift's Connection with the Congitive realm. This could make a nice simmetry with the 3 bondsmiths being "more focused" on the three planes, Spiritual for Stormfather, Physical for Sibling, Cognitive for Nightwatcher. Of course this clashes with the simmetry between Shards and Lights, so it's just a thematic idea not a mechanic of their powers. In terms of mechanics we have to go with some wild theory, as she's supposed to be an "experiment that's never been tried before", so here it goes: Her bond is unique because it's a somewhat backwards Nahel Bond, so rather than the bond making the spren more tied to the Phyisical realm, it's Lift who grows more Connected and aware of the Spiritual. This would explain her special connection with the Spiritual realm and all that comes with it, and could be worked in the explanation of her 'not aging' Of course there's a number of reasons that could explain her not aging if you accept she's a Bondsmith plus Cultivation shenanigans. Bondsmiths' mechanics are not really clear, and supposed to be very Bondsmith-specific. I mean she burns Lifelight for breakfast for the Almighty's sake But that's it from me, what do you guys think? does this make any sense?
  3. So, I’ve been thinking about the differences between the Nightwatcher’s boons and Cultivation’s boons. For the Nightwatcher’s boons, we keep seeing completely unrelated boons and curses. For example, one of Ash’s assistants, Av, talks about how his father got cloth for his boon, and then saw the world upside down. However, when Cultivation gives a boon, she appears to make them related. For Dalinar, he forgot his pain from Evi’s death, but he also can’t remember anything else about her. For Taravangian, he received wisdom and empathy/passion, but he could never have them at the same time. Each boon and curse appears to be related. They also appear to be influenced by what Cultivation knows about them. This brings us to Lift’s boon and curse. We don’t know her exact words, only that she has said that asked not to change. We also don’t know exactly what her curse was. What we do know is that she now can make Lifelight out of food, and appears to be partially in the Cognitive Realm. I’m not sure how this is related to not changing, however we can try to guess her curse off of her wording. My theory is that she's changing mentally instead of physically. After all, she’s obviously growing, but her mindset stays the same. She mentions that stealing food is her thing, and she doesn’t want to change it. She says the first time we see her that the reason she hasn’t stolen from a place like a palace is because she doesn’t know where she would go after that. She demonstrates a ridiculous level of stubbornness and a hatred of change throughout the entire series. I believe this is because she is partially stuck in the Cognitive Realm, the realm of spren. Syl mentions that spren don’t change, and we’ve seen other groups of spren stuck in the same behaviors, like Lift is. Spren also regard stormlight as a kind of fuel. For instance, when Notum is injured in RoW, the group gives him stormlight to help him heal. Lift uses Lifelight in this way, turning food/fuel into Lifelight. Whether these are just coincidences or not, Lift does appear to be stuck mentally, and I believe that this was her curse. Please tell me your theories, if you have any!
  4. What happens if Sja-anat touches another Unmade or one of the Godspren? Also, can the Nightwatcher give her Bondsmith infinite boons?
  5. From the album: Stormlight Characters

    My take on Cultivation and the Nightwatcher, took a few artistic liberties but I am really happy with the outcome.
  6. Yeah, title. Personally, I do think there's a decent change that Lift becomes the Kaladin of the latter half of the series, with her as the arguable main character of books 6-10 the way that Kal has been for 1-4 (first book of the era both establishing the greater world at the current moment and also the past of the main viewpoint character, character deals with trauma related to their parents and deals with their own problems relating to doing violence for a good cause,) and we've seen her grow solidly through the present books, while also keeping her out of focus enough to prevent her from overplaying her hand in terms of history and things she has to work through. But as we've seen, she's already pretty far in her bond with Wyndle; Lift becomes a Third-Ideal Edgedancer as of, well, Edgedancer, and I'm not certain a Fourth and Fifth Ideal would be enough to deal with whatever craziness goes on in the latter half of the series. For this reason I believe Lift will bond the Nightwatcher (assuming that it is in fact a Bondsmith spren), as well as a few others. Firstly, there's the fact that Lift is a magical little goblin person. Lift is one of three characters we know of to have been gifted a boon by Cultivation directly rather then the Nightwatcher, and I personally believe her modifications are a bit more in depth then either Dalinar's or Taravangian's. Lift's spiritweb being modified to 1. run on Lifelight rather then Stormlight, 2. metabolize said Lifelight directly from caloric intake, and 3. exist a bit more in the cognitive realm (if i remember correctly) is to me a much more overt changes then Dalinar's temporary amnesia, and maybe even more overt then Taravangian's intelligence and passion. By modifying her spiritweb to run on Lifelight, it's possible that Cultivation is setting Lift up to deal with significantly more taxing abilities, such as the Connection-based powers of a Bondsmith. Lift also being an Edgedancer means she has one of the more simplified powersets of the Radiants IMO, so giving her access to four surges would be not too strong to be a main character, as neither Edgedancers nor Bondsmiths have been primarily combative in terms of abilities and instead forces Lift to continue using her intelligence and instincts in combat. (Also, having a living Shardblade already accounts for Bondsmiths so far not giving Blades.) The other important part of Lift's cultivation ties is looking, again, at Dalinar and Taravangian, more importantly looking at where they ended up due to Cultivation. Dalinar went from the Blackthorn, a man who treated the Geneva Conventions like a checklist, to the leader of the Radiants who sold a priceless weapon from an ancient time to free slaves, who is imperfect but trying, and who is one of two present Bondsmiths (and you could also make a pretty solid argument that him being in close proximity to Navani and helping her deal with her trauma due to Gav put her in a better position to be the other Bondsmith), and Taravangian, who's a frickin' Shard. Cultivation does not mess around, and that means Lift is definitely in for great things. "So," you say, "when would this happen? How do you see it going down?" Well, firstly, it's kind of rude to interrupt me while I'm writing, isn't it? But because I'm just that magnanimous, I'll tell you anyway. I see this bond being either the epilogue of book 5 (unlikely), first third of book 6, (maybe) or ending of book 6 (now we're cooking with oil!) I'll go through these in reverse order of likeliness. I doubt this'll happen at the end of book 5, because I imagine book 5 will be crammed tight already with Szeth and Kaladin vibing, the challenge, and everything else that I'm forgetting for the moment, and also because when this doesn't happen in book 5 I want a few years to hold out hope that my theorizing isn't wrong, dagnabbit. First third of book 6 I could see, but it would require a good amount of more obvious buildup in 5 and 6, and again, there's already approximately five billion irons in the fire for book 5. This bond occurring at the end of book 6 I really like, though, because buildup to a spren bond has generally taken a full book for a PoV character (Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Navani, etc) so having the Sanderlanche of Book 6 include a Lift Bondsmith Bond would be enough time to establish dual spren bonds, etc; this also gives a character the ability to play with the Connection-based powers of a Bondsmith in combat more often, as Dalinar has been more of a logistics guy then a boots on the dirt combatant since gaining his Bondsmith bond, and I don't expect Navani to be jumping into combat soon but instead to explore the realmatic/scientific ramifications of Bondsmith powers instead. (Plus the whole can-the-sibling-bond-live-outside-urithuru thing.) Additionally, since there'll be a 10 year gap between books 5 and 6, I could see quite a few things going down. Dalinar either loses or ties the contest of champions and suffers a bad fate, removing him from the battlefield; and if Urithuru was destroyed/conquered again, that would serve to demoralize the Radiants and remove our second Bondsmith, giving the characters ample reason to seek out a combat-based Bondsmith to assist in the retaking of Roshar. This would give Lift, as a uniquely gifted individual in terms of Spiritweb, someone who already knows the location of the Nightwatcher, and theoretically one of the last remaining Radiants, significant motivation to be the one who directly seeks out Cultivation in order to see if she'll help them; and when she gets to where she met Cultivation as a young child, she's instead met with the Nightwatcher, who offers to bond Lift in addition to Wyndle, either on Cultivation's orders or just because Lift is that... Awesome. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the theory, been brewing on it for a while. Thank you for reading this, and have a lovely day. (Edit - Totally forgot that Lift has an Aviar now too. I don't think that factors into this theory, but it does give Lift a way to grow in book 5 without going up an Ideal, and if it has an ability like sensing other minds, could also help Lift find the Nightwatcher. )
  7. I made a post recently about how it seems that shapeshifters in the Cosmere are able to change their age and appearance by having some kind of connection to the cognitive realm, and then by manipulating their cognitive aspect. So, could the reason why Lift was changed the way she was by the Nightwatcher be because that she now technically does have the ability to “stay the same”, but she simply doesn’t know how to use it?
  8. Who do you think might become the third bondsmith? This topic has probably been explored on this forum, but I can't find it, so it's probably time for another post. Also, do we know for a fact that the third bondsmith spren is the Nightwatcher? My guesses, such as they are, are Adolin, Hesina, or Dabbid.
  9. @Ishar and I were discussing who the third Bondsmith might be, and he presented an interesting idea: What if there is no Bondsmith? With the anti-light, what if Odium's first move is to kill the Nightwatcher, eliminating the third Bondsmith spren? Whether or not this will actually happen is worth discussing, but this also poses another question. We know that lots of people have boons from the Nightwatcher, including Lift, Dalinar, and Taravangian. What would happen to these people––and to Roshar in general––if Odium kills the Nightwatcher? Just curious to see what everyone thinks!
  10. Let's talk about the Old Magic. Do you think that the Nightwatcher acts justly in the boons and curses she gives out? As a case study, do I just have a dirty mind, or do you think the man who got numb hands might have asked for something a bit... personal? Something numb hands might help with a bit? (trying not to get R rated.) Maybe the Nightwatcher found his request pathetic and decided to give him his boon in the form of numb hands. And why the heck did Cultivation answer Taravangian's request for capacity to save humankind in a twisted way that led him to become Odium? Doesn't Cultivation want humans to survive? She does not have to maintain any kind of balance in her boons and curses, apparently, so she didn't have to give him a curse as large as his boon was great. And anyway, it doesn't appear that she did give him the capacity, not really, though we can't tell that for sure yet. Thoughts?
  11. All spoilers - RoW, Dawnshard, Cosmere, WoB, r/cremposting, whispers of fictive headmates, etc: In a nutgreatshell: I propose that the herald Ishi and the radiant Melishi are one and the same. 1. MELISHI We know that Melishi was a Bondsmith prior to the Recreance. He was bonded to the Sibling. He enjoyed a position of authority among the Knights Radiant. He lead a strike team to capture Ba-ado-Mishram. He was warned that this would have unintended consequences. He ignored this warning. 2. ISHAR We know that Ishar was a Herald of the Almighty. He is currently the mad God-Priest of Tukar. He is obsessed with spren, the Nahel bond, and Connection in general. He is preposterously skilled in combat - far more than even the Blackthorn and several Knights Radiant. Before he was a Herald, he was a part of the development of surgebinding on Ashyn, which led to the destruction of Ashyn, and was part of the subsequent exodus of humans from Ashyn to Roshar. He is still studying the fundamental forces of the Cosmere with an eye towards their manipulation. 3. SIMILARITIES I mean, basically all of it? ISHI, MELISHI - their names are pretty dang similar. Both had positions of authority in the Knights Radiant - Melishi from the way he is spoken of in the Gem Archive, and the Knights Radiant being literally called "Ishar's Knights." Both are closely associated with Bondsmiths. Melishi was a Bondsmith (bonded to the Sibling), the historical Ishar was the Heraldic patron of Bondsmiths, and the modern Ishar tried to steal a Bondsmith's bond to the Stormfather. Both are closely associated with Connection. We really only know Melishi in the context of gems mentioning Ba-Ado-Mishram, who in another gem is specifically discussed in terms of majuscular Connection. Ishar, in RoW, is all about that Connection. Melishi captured Ba-Ado-Mishram in a perfect gem (much the way Dalinar does to The Thrill). Ishar is studying a new way to capture spren, one that involves less jewelry and The historical Ishar was part of the development of surgebinding on Ashyn. The modern Ishar is trying to mess with the fundamental forces of Roshar. Melishi messed with the fundamental forces by capturing Ba-Ado-Mishram. The historical Ishar was part of the exodus of humans from Ashyn to Roshar. The modern Ishar is studying the persistence of Invested entities outside of their home. (This is pretty close to what Restares is doing on Roshar, and what Thaidakar is doing on Scadrial.) In the same way, Melishi was studying how to stop Voidlight from getting from Braize to Roshar by means of a spren. These seem similar - even progressive, one two three. The historical Ishar was part of the Surgebinding investigations that destroyed Ashyn. Melishi was part of the spren-capturing that caused the False Desolation and turned the parshendi into parshmen. The modern Ishar is on his way to becoming the subject of a Behind The Bastards episode. This guy genocides. And I mean, the methods of his madness are bad enough, but his *goals* are probably even worse! The guy should really be the Herald of Ignoring Externalities. "Playing with forces too big for him to control" seems like his bag, baby. He answers the question: What if Lanfear was like "okay, so we've got this Bore. What if we bored a BIGGER bore and then put THAT Bore in THIS bore? Problem solved!" This guy probably has a coffee mug that says "That's a problem for Tomorrow Ishar!" OMG I hate him so much. 4. PROBLEMS From the Gem Archive, we are told: ""This generation has had only one Bondsmith[...]" This suggests that there are multiple, changing Bondsmiths. But it does not imply that it all Bondsmiths are new. Heck, it tells us clearly that the 'multiple' part is not constant. I expect that none of these parts are constant. A) Heralds can bond spren. Look at Nale. Heralds can lead their Order - again, Nale. C) Heralds are immortal. Look at... well, 9 of them. (Sorry Jezza) D) We know that Ishi is older than the Heralds themselves. He was definitely alive during the time Melishi was alive. E) Again, Ishar tried to steal Dalinar's bond to the Stormfather - but another way of saying that is, he tried to bond a Bondsmith spren himself. F) Back in the day, the Nahel bond was less permanent. Maya says that she thought the breaking of her Radiant bond would hurt, but would not kill her. This implies that it would have left her able to be re-bonded to a new person, making a new Knight Radiant - much as she is on the road to doing with Adorablin. By this same method, a bondsmith could well have bon G) We are told by the Gem Archive that "This generation has only one Bondsmith." It does not imply that this one Bondsmith hasn't been a Bondsmith for generations - since, indeed, the beginning. And it does not imply that, just because there's only one bondsmith, only one of the Bondsmith spren is bonded. A person can have more than one Nahel bond at once. And if anyone was ever to do this it would be Mr. Bondypants himself. H) As a result, Melishi could have been bonded to more than one of the Bondsmith spren - before his attack on Ba-Ado-Mishram, or even, during it. I) Storms, it wouldn't surprise me to discover that Ishar CREATED the Sibling - using his Bonding powers to combine Stormlight and Cultivationlight into a new "Bondsmith-level spren." (We need better vocabulary, here. Bondspren? Shardspren? Greatspren? Pleez halp.) J) Storms, I'm guessing that Ishi-Melishi is the one who created the Nahel bond entirely. 5. SIDE THEORY THAT'S TOTALLY BATSHIT, I KNOW Since Ba-Ado-Mishram was a Light-level spren, and the only other Light-level spren are the Bondsmith spren, I'm going to go ahead and suggest that Ba-Ado-Mishram could have been a Bondsmith-bondable spren. Ba-Ado-Mishram might have been a regular ol' spren of Odium, and her only association with Light was to forge a Connection between a Light-source - say Odium himself - and the parsh. Or, Ba-Ado-Mishram could have been the spren of Odium in the way the Stormfather is the spren of Honor, or the Nightwatcher the spren of Cultivation. BUT. What if Ba-Ado-Mishram was a spren like the Sibling - a meeting of the two? And what if, as I theorized about the Sibling, Ishar was involved in her creation? Ba-Ado-Mishram might have been a 'sibling' of Honor and Odium, or of Cultivation and Odium - creating a 'towerlight'-like blend of the two lights. Maybe the creation of such a blended greatspren was part of the Oathpact by which Odium and the Ashyn Refugees were allowed onto Roshar. Maybe there were two of them - three blended greatspren, in addition to one pure greatspren of Odium. Meaning there's one mixed greatspren, and one pure greatspren, that we have yet to meet - or at least to understand. If Ba-Ado-Mishram was a Bondsmith-spren, Ishi/Melishi could well have bonded her at one point - or indeed, could have been bonded to her even while he was imprisoning her. This might be the reason that the Sibling went into hiding, and refused to bond any new Radiant. His last Bondsmith had betrayed one of his other bonded spren! (Aside: I kind of wonder if the Sibling being tied to the Tower is actually not that far off from Ba-Ado-Mishram being trapped in a gem. But that's a bit metaphysical for the moment - save 4 l8r.) And, ifffff this is all true... ISHAR COULD STILL BE BONDED TO BA-ADO-MISHRAM. Still bonded. All this time! This could well be the reason that Ishar is so double extra super crazy at the moment. He could be bonded to a spren who is trapped in a gem and has been stuck underground for a few millennia. That's probably halfway to being trapped himself - halfway to being Taln. Probably not super awesome for the ol' mental health - just guessing. 6. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER My guess is that the history/mechanics went something like this. -Ishar was a human living on Ashyn -He was interested in the Surges - kind of the way Dr Faustus was interested in the spirits, Dr Oppenheimer in the atom, Dr. Eronaile the Power, or the current Ishar in playing Dr. freakin' Mengele with living spren. -Odium tempted Ishar with the power to manipulate the fundamental surges -Ishar did so, creating Surgebinders - probably creating the Nahel bond as we know it. -In doing so, he also delved_too_deep.gif, and created such instability on Ashyn that the planet was rendered uninhabitable - all but destroyed. (Side note - the name "Ishar" is quite a bit like the "Ishtar" of Biblical times. There's a lot of cross-pollenation among old deities, and their names... but Ishtar is associated with the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve with the forbidden knowledge that saw them cast out of Paradise. RIP Tranquiline Halls.) -Odium then asked Honor and Cultivation if he, and his people, could flee to Roshar. The Avasts agreed, under the condition that Odium would stay on Braize and not do, y'know, Odium Stuff. This was the Oathpact. -The Oathpact was created, not just by the power of the Shards, but by the power of Ishar the Bondsmith. He created the rules of the Oathpact. -The reason Ishar was able to bind Shards to an agreement, is the same reason that he was able to bind spren of the cognitive to people of the physical by means of the Nahel bond. It's the same reason that he is all about that Connection and always has been. You see, Ishar is - or at least, was - a Dawnshard. It could be UNITE, as in UNITE THEM; or it could be BIND, as in Surgebinding, as in Bondsmith ("binding contract" sounds a lot like an Oathpact to this attorney.) I'm guessing it's BIND. -Specifically, Ishar was given th Dawnshard of Binding by Odium. And specifically, he was given it by Odium *specifically* so that it would lead to the ruination of Ashyn, so that Odium could play upon Honor and Cultivation's sympathies to admit his people to their system - and in doing so, let him in, to war upon them, and kill them. -Ishar then wrote the Oathpact, and Bound the parties to it. The problem, here, is that - pacts are hard. Words are hard. Hell, I'm a lawyer. Writing contracts is hard. Ambiguities are unavoidable, and can be exploited by other parties - and sometimes ambiguities can be hidden by the drafter to exploit themselves. Odium found, or made, those ambiguities, and exploited them - leading to the death of Tanavast, the splintering of Honor, and the cycle of Desolations. -Hell, Odium might have done this same trick to the other Shards he Splintered. The Bondsmith's power to turn human words into the laws of the Universe is as beautiful and terrible as the very dreams of the skybreakers. (When you've got the Hammer of Gods, everything looks like a Nale. Sorry. No, no I'm not.) -I don't understand the current status of the Dawnshard of Bind. I know it profoundly affects Dalinar. That's all I know. It could be held by the Stormfather. It could be hidden, but was held long enough by Bondsmith-related entities that it suffuses all that they are. But, if I had to guess, part of the Oathpact was that the Dawnshard of Binding was splintered into ten pieces, and divided amongst the Heralds, whose main goal was not to be interplanetary warlords, but simply keepers of a power that was too great to combine - and too dangerous for Honor and Cultivation to want anywhere near Roshar. The Heralds, as prison-guards of the power that destroyed their home planet, were then banished to Braize, and never meant to return. Then Odium went all rules lawyer on them, found mad sploits, and thus the endless cycle of free-trips-to-Damnation. -Whether by Ishar's bindings, or the natural reordering of the world after Odium's people came to Roshar, the Nahel bond became as tied to Voidlight as it was to Stormlight and Cultivationlight. My guess is that three spren were created to be co-equal blends of the Shards in the system. The spren who resides in Urithiru is part Honor, part Cultivation. That spren has two siblings: Ba-Ado-Mishram, and an as-yet-unnamed (or at least, as-yet-unidentified) spren, one of which is of Honor and Odium, the other of Cultivation and Odium. -As a result of stacking playing-god on top of playing-god, Ishar/Melishi's capture of Ba-Ado-Mishram stopped what could well have been the imminent conquest of Roshar by Odium. But in doing so - well, Lews Sealing The Bore. Prepare For Unforseen Consequences. OOPS I DID IT A GAIN. This deprived the parshmen of cognition, deprived the spren of the ability to survive the breaking of their bonds, and probably other things that we don't even understand, because THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU STICK YOUR DICK IN THE UNIVERSE. And... storms, it is quite possible that the name Ba-Ado-Mishram is a sobriquet. "Ado" could come from "Adora," the same root as the first syllable in Adolin's name, meaning "light" - and "Mishram" contains "Ish" and even "Ishr," which could be linked to the Herald. Maybe there's a Ba-Ado-Mishram and a, idk, Tet-Ado-Mishram, indicating Honor/Odium-light and Cultivation/Odium-light (or vice versa). Heck, maybe the "Sibling" is actually like Asha-Ado-Mishram - three Siblings, created simultaneously by the powers of a Dawnshard, in the hopes of a harmony that Odium immediately sought to destroy. Three multi-shardic blends - three little Harmonys - three little Adonalsiums - simultaneously beautiful in their unity, and terrible in their return towards that which was Shattered. -The phrase UNITE THEM is probably just a general, all-encompassing idea of the Dawnshard of BINDING. It might even be a mixed version, resulting from the Intention of dead Tanavast and mere echoes of the splinitered Dawnshard. However, I doubt it will be satiated until it has united the splinters of itself (if such they are), and, indeed, the Shards of Adonalsium. -I expect that is Hoid's biggest interest in the Rosharan system - the unification of the shards of the Dawnshard of Binding, towards his ultimate goal of the reunification of Adonalsium. -...which interest could very well be at conflict with the best interests of Roshar. -And, as a result, the biggest single piece on the Rosharan chessboard is probably... Rysn. Because A] maybe the only way out of the BINDing Oathpact is to CHANGE it... and B] because my girl Rysn real good at contract negotiation. TEAM RYSN BABY. ALL ABOARD DAT WANDERSAIL! Best from Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where I am off-Trail hiding from a thunderclaststorm -Silver the Ridgerunner
  12. Titles pretty self explanatory. Hypothetical. You visit the nightwatcher in the valley. You ask for a boon. What do you ask for? And what do you think would be a curse that balances the boon enough? Let me know your thoughts. I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours
  13. First time poster, so I'm not sure if this theory has ever been brought up before. I apologize if I'm retreading some well worn ground here. I can't explain why or how, but I think that going through an Everstorm for some reason starts to heal/reverse the effects that Cultivation bestows on her visitors. Dalinar in the Storm at the end of WoR starts remembering Evi soon after. Lift in the Storm at the end of Edgedancer and she can tell she is getting bigger and older in Oathbringer. As far as Taravangian, well I haven't finished RoW yet and I know that stuff is supposed to go into that section of the forums. Anyway, just an idea I've had up in the old brain so I thought I'd throw it out to you guys and gals to tear apart. Enjoy!
  14. Hello, first post, be gentle with me We don't really know that the Nightwatcher is a Bondsmith spren. It's a good theory, seems widely accepted and quite probable. But so far as I know, no in-book quote or WoB confirms her as such. I think it's likely that she probably is one of the three Bondsmith spren, as a counterpart to the Stormfather. She already has a magic system (-ish?) associated with her, the Boon and Curse: granting a wish but with a curse attached alongside it. Couldn't someone also ask her for the boon of being granted Radiancy (is that the word?). Has anyone in Roshar's history? Could she grant other spren bonds, lower spren or spren of the other Orders? And assuming she is a Radiant spren, could someone ask to bond with her? Could it be how she herself is supposed to be bonded? Could the next Bondsmith have to trek to the Valley and ask for the boon of bonding her? What could be the Curse to accompany such a Boon? Would they need to speak the Ideals or would the Curse, sort of, supplant the words?
  15. If you got a boon and a bane from the nightwatcher, (let’s say your boon was good luck for a year, and your bane was seeing upside-down for the rest of your life) and then you burned Aluminum, would that get rid of the boon/bane? Aluminum sorta ‘cleanses’ all investiture from the person’s soul/spiritweb right? Would it depend on the type of boon/bane? What about compounding gold, gold healing tries to restore you to your spiritual ideal right? Would that remove them? Could either one of these remove a bane but keep a boon? If you perceived the good luck as apart of you, but still saw the upside-down vision as some outside handicap affecting you, and then compounded gold, what would happen? I’ve checked the arcanum and couldn’t find anything that mentioned aluminum and the Nightwatcher together.
  16. There are some things that bother me about the Nightwatcher. Let's look at the other godspren first: The Stormfather - responsible for the Highstorms that provide Stormlight The Sibling - probably powers Urithiru The Unmade - Voidbiding originates with them and, at least in Ba-Ado-Mishram's case, they provide Voidlight Their names are self-explanatory or have a known source (Near East mythology, Lovecraft). They provide essential advantages for their respective sides of conflict. So, why is Cultivation's godspren called the Nightwatcher? And can she provide something useful for the Knights Radiant? I can see several options: Old Magic, obviously. The problem is, most boons are kind of useless in the broader perspective. The two that provide the biggest advantage to the KR, Dalinar's and Lift's, seem to originate from Cultivation directly (the latter based on this WoB) The Unmade apparently cannot affect Nighwatcher's Valley. The same used to apply to Urithiru. I used to think it was due to Cultivation and the Sibling, respectively, but what if that was always Nightwatcher's role? Guarding against Odium's forces? This would provide nice contrast with Sja-anat. One modifies people, the other modifies spren. One guards the KR, the other is Odium's spy Future sight. Dalinar has a vision of killing Elhokar in the Valley (this could be of Cultivation, obviously). This would provide a nice link with the name of the Order of Truthwatchers. Also, it provides some additional explanation why Vorinism looks unfavorably on searching Nightwatcher's help What do you think?
  17. If this has been posted before, forgive me, I didn't locate it elsewhere. Something occured to me and it seemed no one has brought it up. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A BONDSMITH BONDS THE NIGHTWATCHER? The reason I ask is because the NIGHTWATCHER has access to the old magic. Sure Dalinar bonded the Stormfather, but that's just boring Honor. Ho hum . Will the Nightwatcher's Wordsmith be able to manipulate the old magic as well? What say all you wise ardents?
  18. Okay so we can assume that when you ask for non material things or glimpses of the future , the Nightwatcher grants the request using Spiritual Mumbo Jumbo. But lets say you ask for a boat load of emerald broams , where would she get it from ? would the Theylen gem reserves suddenly lose like fifty percent of there supply ? or would she just soulcast them out of dirt .Lets say it is explained would you somehow have to carry all that home or would it just materialize in your home , how would she stop people from just taking them. I know what you'll say " Its just a manipulation of fortune " well what if you specified that you want these ill gotten riches to materialize right in front of you??????
  19. We've already seen several of the Nightwatcher and Cultivation's boons and curses having a significant impact on our story. The most obvious is Dalinar, with Cultivation stealing away Odium's champion at exactly the right moment. Lift is also playing an increasingly large role in our story, and her ability to partially interact with the cognitive realm has some wild implications. I also think that the Diagram is all an elaborate piece of Cultivation's long game, and she's manipulating Taravangian and Co. to do exactly what she needs. So this leads me to believe that in fact - all of the boons and curses are part of Cultivation's master plan. Just think about it, what if the surge of gravitation suddenly flips everybody upside down? BOOM Av's Dad can see everything perfectly and has plenty of good cloth. What if Odium makes something really hot that needs retrieving? Av's brother can grab it with his numb hands AND he'll look fantastic with his new haircut. Maybe Baxil finally became useful and got courage for when things get really scary. Each boon/curse is Cultivation playing chess while Odium plays checkers. Go ahead and debate, and I'm excited to be proven 100% right... some time around Book 9.
  20. So the common theory about Lift is that she is 13. She visited the Nightwatcher 3 years ago . Was granted a greater boon/curse like Dalinar , and Teravangion . It Seems that she is cursed to never grow up , or at least she believes ! But I have a hard time believing she is just 10. “The Stormfather rumbled in frustration. That woman! This is a creation specifically meant to defy my will! “Woman?” Dalinar asked, shaking his head. That child is tainted by the Nightwatcher.” Excerpt From Oathbringer Brandon Sanderson https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/oathbringer/id1198279804?mt=11 This material may be protected by copyright. The Stormfather first refers to her as that woman . When Dalinar remarked the Stormfather changed it to child. Brandon Too good an author to make reference like that for no reason . Also I have a hard time believing a 10 year old girl , would have the ability to search out the Nightwatcher . I suppose it’s possible but I mean really 10 years old , even if she was an urchin ! So I was thinking what if Lift was older When she went to see the nightwatcher? As part of her curse she was reduced to the age of ten and was told she would have that mentality forever? Everyone else that has sought the Nightwatcher was older and facing enormous problems , where they felt the only way was to go to the Nightwatcher as a last resort . What do you guys think ?
  21. I’m not confident enough in this to call it a theory, but I do think there is some significant support for the idea I just had. The Vorins consider the Old Magic and Nightwatcher to be synonymous and blasphemous. Since we know the humans on Roshar originated elsewhere (Ashyn), I believe the Old Magic actually refers to the magic of Ashyn. Since that magic (boon) is granted by sickness (curse), it makes sense that the Nightwatcher’s activities would come to be associated with that, particularly after enough time had passed for the Rosharan humans had forgotten their other worldly origins, but would still have vague myths and legends about how the Old Magic operated and it matched up with the Nightwatchers boon/curse game. Now if this is true, it MIGHT imply that ALL magic from Roshar is surgebinding, all magic from Braize is voidbinding, and all magic from Ashyn is the Old Magic...in other words, the shardic source of the investiture doesn’t determine the magic, the planet of origin does.
  22. Hello all, I have invested some stake in the idea that Cusicesh the Protector is the third Sibling, referred to as a sleeping "they" by the Stormfather in Oathbringer. The Stormfather refuses to divulge more information than their existence and their relation to himself and the Nightwatcher. Cusicesh is described in Interlude I-5 of the Way of Kings as a spren of great size (over 100 feet tall) with four arms and a body with a deep blue center. It* rises out of the ocean at the same time every day (7:46am, though I won't pretend to know what that means,) and looks toward the Origin for the full ten minutes of its "performance". While doing so, it rapidly changes between human faces--male and female. Axies cannot tell if there are any repetitions of the faces shown. People who have watched Cusicesh have reported feeling drained afterwards. From Oathbringer's exploration of the Cognitive Realm, there is mention of a link between humanity and the spren. If the Sibling is "sleeping" as the Stormfather said, I believe they would still need to sustain that interaction with humanity. So, everyday, Cusicesh wakes up from its pseudo-hibernation, drains some energy from onlookers to sustain itself, and looks toward the Origin with longing, bearing the faces of those it bonded with in the past, then goes back to sleep. *Though I believe Cusicesh to be the Sibling in question, my belief does not constitute as evidence for sentience in said spren, so I will use the pronouns given to me from the book for Cusicesh until I am proven correct or other pronouns are given.
  23. Nightwatcher offered Dalinar Nightblood. Interesting. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE? PS: great foreshadowing...
  24. Did Roshar originally have Spren? Sylphrena indicates 4 genders of spren. 2 for the Parsh, 2 for the human. I don't think Roshar was formed like other Shardic worlds. No other Cosmere world has spren like Roshar, so far. It would seem that the Parsh thought of their objects being Malen and Femalen, voila SPREN! Perhaps? Maybe? Did the way they think or sing create the spren way back then? Shard worlds seem to have the 3 realms setup. Roshar wasn't created by a Shard (that I'm aware of.) The way I understand the history is that Odium saw the existing native Parsh and decided to become their god. He got invested to that Solar System. Along comes the human Voidbringers to settle around Shinovar (initially.) Honor and Cultivation either settled with them or decided to call it home at a later time. Introducing Honor's high storms, Odium's Everstorm (old in design) and the Cultivation's/Nightwatcher's Old Magic. When I read TWoK, I assumed Honors' death and Splintering brought about the spren. I have now been proven false. So, I suspect Roshar was similar to an Earth like world and topography. The Parsh evolved naturally and all was pleasant until Odium rolled on in. My question is HOW and WHEN do you think Roshar got spren? A certified timeline of these early events would be great to read. Thank you.
  25. From the album: The Girl who Looked Up

    Most of my work comes from speedpainting every day (It was my resolution), but I wanted to slow down for this one and give you guys some of my line work. This scene really jumped out at me from how Sanderson described it.
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