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Thanks to Barnes and Noble, we've just had this STUNNING artwork from Oathbringer shared with us. I want to say it's Honor and Cultivation, but it could also be Ishar and Vivenna. Let the theorising begin!

Firstly, if indeed a dead spren/shardblade can be resurrected, it will be an entirely new thing. However, we know already that it is technically possible to do. Syl came back, but it was Kaladin who returned to his Oaths. The Radiant is dead and cannot do so now. So how would this happen? The Stormfather is not exactly a flexible being, and Tanavast was never much good at seeing into the future. Thoughts/theories that He wouldn't have thought of yet? Second, the man "broke his oath to kill it." This implies an action taken with a specific intent. I know we're all kings of reading too much into things, but this seems ... intentional. As for the reason why he wanted to kill it, you can see my signature for my personal theory, but the intent to kill was obviously there. Lastly, the spren is still there. It exists, and learns, though not quite the same as before. Could Dalinar possibly re-bond Oathbringer if it comes back to life? I feel like this is more than an informative exchange. I think we're going to see Oathbringer again. I mean, it's the name of the book. And I really think we're going to see it in regards to Dalinar. Maybe Amaram will try to kill him with Oathbringer and it will refuse to hurt him? Amaram brings it back to life and suddenly becomes a contender to Dalinar's authority? What are your ideas?

Simple theory, but profound historical Rosharan implications. The girl who looked up tells the story of a girl who climbed a wall forbidden wall only to find on the other side that she was the monster all along. On the other side they also had Stormlight, and Storms. After she climbed her people experienced these things as well. (Ostensibly). Meanwhile, we have some interesting facts. Shinovar is behind a giant wall of mountains. The storms have no power there. There are few (or no?) Spren. There may not be any Stormlight (unconfirmed). Shinovar has a typical ‘human’, Yolish environment, whereas the rest of Roshar is profoundly alien. The Shin religion holds walking on stone to be profane, meaning religious shin can never leave their valley. The Shin also see using Stormlight as illumination to be profoundly disturbing, implying it’s too holy to use like that and that they don’t have/use Stormlight. Meanwhile, the Listeners were the native rulers of Roshar, who have since been delegated to a slave species. THEORYTIME: The stone shamans prohibition against walking on stone wasn’t originally strictly religious; it was part of a deal, a treaty. Humans settled on Roshar in the Shinovar valley, likely with shardic or other magical help (dawnsingers?), but either way some serious terraforming was done to create a ‘wall’ and to give the valley soil. A deal was made with the Listeners (possibly by the humans, possibly by the shard or dawnsingers that helped set up Shinovar) that the Humans wouldn’t cross over the wall; that it would be illegal for them to walk on the bare rock or Roshar. Thus the humans (likely refugees?) were able to settle an enclave of Roshar in peace. Generations pass, and reasons may have been forgotten (or simply prohibitions and restrictions ignored). It’s possible too that new humans came to the valley of truth or any number of things. But what happened was that someone climbed the wall, and broke the treaty. After that, or as part of that, more humans came over the wall from Shinovar and began to colonize Roshar. Were they adventurers and colonists? Were they refugees fleeing ethnic discrimination by the Shin? Were they ‘truthless’, banished from the valley? Or did they just want new lands to settle? Either way, significant populations of humans crossed the mountains and began to spread throughout Roshar, stealing the fire from the gods and opening Pandora’s box, all at once. This began the millennia long struggle between Humans and Listeners (although it may have had long stretches of peace, commingling and cooperation - see the herdazians and horneaters). Likely, it is the human/listener tensions that Odium was attracted to/fanned into the flames of war and hatred, leading to the cycle of desolations where Odium would infiltrate both sides and seed them with voidbringers. Eventually, the Listeners being more naturally susceptible to Spren bonds and having more righteous anger against the humans were suborned en masse by Odium. (Alethi and Iriali are both ethnically interesting with their hair - likely they arrived on Roshar later). Tl;dr - Stone shamanism is a memory of early humanities treaties with the Listeners, and The Girl Who Looked Up is about those treaties starting to fall apart/early human forays from the valley of Truth.

Okay, so I've been reading the free chapters of Oathbringer on Tor, and I got to Dalinar's conversation with the Stormfather about challenging Odium to a duel, and I wondered "what would the stakes have to be for Odium to accept?" I knew that Odium would only accept such a challenge if winning would put him significantly further ahead than he already was, and he was basically winning the war at that point. So what could put him so far ahead that it would be worth it? What could possibly stand in his way that he could remove more effectively by drinking a duel than his other methods? Radiants. They could pose a serious problem to his plans, and fighting then could be really annoying, even for a Shard. What if Odium could ensure that, if he won, all of the Radiants would go away? Say, break their oaths or something... So what if that's already happened before? What if that was the cause for the Day of Recreance? This actually makes sense, if you think about it. We know that one Order didn't break it's oaths, so maybe they had all agreed to break their oaths if their contestant lost, and one order broke that promise instead of those previously made to their Spren, or didn't agree at all. I'm not sure which order this would be, but what do you think? Could this be it?

Just wanted to share a moment I just had going through Way of Kings. Brandon always impresses me with these one-liners that pack serious punches later on in the story, and as a fledgling writer, it's really humbling to see just how well planned all of this is. Which we now know isn't something he was taught, but he learned. It just makes me happy so I wanted to share. Sanderson books get better with age and the more you read them. I can't wait to get my fix in tomorrow morning.

Currently in the middle of a stormlight reread in preperation for oathbringer and since I had just read last week's chapters earlier the same day I noticed this snippet: "No, I'm not worried about that one. The old fool sows chaos, but does not reach for power offered by oppurtunity. He hides in his insignificant city, listening to its songs, thinking he plays in world events. He has no idea. His is not the position of the hunter. This creature in Tukar however, is different. I'm not convinced he is human. If he is, he's certainly not of the local species" This is from the chapter of words of radiance that Shallan has met with the Ghostbloods as Viel and is hiding in the illusion of a rock she produced. In the Dalinar chapter from last week he receives some spanreed communications from the Tukari God King who reacts strongly against their claims of having new Radiants among them. So think from this we can probably presume he is a worldhopper? Thought this was an interesting wee snippet that'd be cool to share if anyone didn't notice the connection sorry if I'm late to the game and this has already been pointed out

I was processing books for the library at my school, and I decided to take a look at the beautiful endpaper maps and diagrams for the copy of The Way of Kings that had just come in. I noticed that on the "Double Eye" diagram of the radiant orders, the two orders in the center were the Bondsmiths and the Truthwatchers. This interested me, and got me to start wondering why the Truthwatchers are in the center with the Bondsmiths, who we know were the leaders and generals of the Knights Radiant. Here are a few of my theories: Truthwatchers are close to Cultivation like Bondsmiths are close to Honor - Some problems with this one: We don't really know if the Bondsmiths are specifically closer to Honor than other orders like the Windrunners. All we know is that Dalinar is bonded to the Stormfather, the godspren of Honor, and I think the prevailing theory is that there are three Bondsmiths, each bonded to a different godspren. We also know that Truthwatchers aren't bonded to a godspren - Renarin is bonded with a spren named Glys, not the Nightwatcher. A different direction with this theory would be that the surges, not the orders, are what's important on this chart. This would mean that some surges are more associated with Cultivation, and others with Honor, i.e. Feruchemy with Preservation and Hemalurgy with Ruin. This would just mean that Illumination and Progression just happened to be the most closely associated with Cultivation, and Adhesion and Tension with Honor. This still brings up some interesting thoughts about what this could mean for Truthwatchers. Like Bondsmiths, Truthwatchers are a key support Order - So far, what we know of the Bondsmiths' abilities seem to be providing support for other Radiants Following this idea, it would also seem to fit with the few details that we know about the Bondsmiths from Words of Radiance. According to their epigraph, they were the generals of the Radiants - leadership, but also support. From this, we can infer that by their placement on the chart, Truthwatchers are also a powerful support Order (although, the "powerful" part may just be wishful thinking about Renarin - wouldn't it be awesome if the character that everyone thought was weak turned out to be one of the most powerful?). Another thing that may hint at this is The key here is that it's not something that directly relates to Renarin - more so to Adolin. Therefore, it could be reasoned that this is a kind of "support" ability. It doesn't really mean anything and it's just how the diagram happened to be laid out - This is unlikely, considering it's Brandon we're dealing with here. Everything means something. E V E R Y T H I N G. As Kelsier would say, there's always another secret. Please tell me what you guys think, and if you have any theories about why the Truthwatchers are in the center of the Double Eye - I would love to read them!

I want to know how everyone feels about this, please give your reasoning. The things I can see from starting at the beginning are, having the continuous story, but longer read time. Starting at the first interludes, you finish faster, but may miss something. Although I feel like that will be mitigated by the discussions on the chapters on this board.

I have been wanting to share some thoughts (and some theories) on here for some time as i have on Reddit. i have a few but have decided to start with the one that gained the largest response on Reddit here first to see how it goes. I know its a little controversial, which is why I am starting with this one. I have other more tinfoil ideas as well and hope this goes okay. I have never really shared on here before and i am a little nervous. I hope everyone enjoys my thoughts. Sorry its so long! The first topic I have decided to do was the idea of Kaladin and Shallan and why I feel they are headed toward a romantic relationship. A controversial topic, I know, and not one I exactly relished in when I started WoR. But by the end of the book and where we are left as far as the characters go, it seemed to make more sense to me. 1. parallel stories Sanderson goes to great pains to show parallelism is Kaladin and Shallan’s story arcs while including some obvious differences. I know the same can be said for Kaladin and Dalinar’s story arcs, and that is something I can go into another time, but this is not the place. The mentor and apprentice relationship can be seen through various stories in Stormlight. But the parallelism and relationship that Kaladin and Shallan develop is unique in Stormlight from what we have seen thus far. A nice subtle example of Kaladin and Shallan’s parallel stories is the slave caravan. The caravan that helps Shallan is the same one that had enslaved Kaladin. We are meant to pick up on this. Their travels to the shattered plains are similar yet different. Sanderson points out the marks in the wagon that Shallan notices and contemplates. These are the same marks that were present when Kaladin was in the wagon. This is a nod to their very similar journeys and how their similar yet unshared experiences later help them understand each other and in turn develop further. Some of the other more obvious examples are their hard lives, isolated small town upbringing, love for their siblings, and the intense tragedy they have both witnessed or been part of. An interesting note that I haven’t seen mentioned much is the fact that one of Kaladin’s slave brands, Shash (means dangerous), is also the number that is meant to represent Shalash, the Herald of Beauty and patron to the Lightweavers. 2. pride and prejudice trope I call this the pride and prejudice trope because it is the best, longest lasting, and most well-known of the trope. Two people from different classes dislike each other and butt heads. It is also an opposites attract trope. There are so many examples of this between Kaladin and Shallan I doubt I will be able to remember them all. For starters, the passion that they seem to show in their squabbles are some of the best examples of the characters actually displaying outward extreme emotions other than in flashbacks, even if that emotion is hate. But it is a well-known trope in story-telling that the strong emotion of hate can easily transfer to the strong emotion of love. So really, the stronger the feeling the more likely it is to swing in the polar opposite direction. The class issue that is present and addressed in part 4 of WoR is also the premise of why Darcy and Elizabeth take a while to understand one another in the novel Pride and Prejudice. It is to be noted that this also seems to parallel Kaladin and Shallan as far as who seems to accept the attraction first. The person who is more open about the difference in their classes is also the one who is the first to admit to the attraction to the other person (Darcy and Kaladin). Elizabeth and Shallan both express less concern about class but are clearly very affected by it subconsciously. This trope also is a great example of respect for the other person based on empathy and mutual understanding as well as respect for the other person’s intellect. This is something that is clearly lacking in Shallan’s relationship with Adolin. A shared level of intellect is not absolutely necessary for a solid relationship in every case, but in my experience in real life as well as storytelling, two people in a relationship where a large difference in intellect occurs can be a problem. The opposites attract part is something that I have seen discussed before in depth. Some of the things that have been previously discussed are as follows: Kaladin is a morning person, Shallan is not. Shallan likes wine, Kaladin avoids alcohol. Their spren hate each other (the issue I see as being the most problematic, even more so than the engagement to Adolin). Shallan loves the weeping, Kaladin hates it (and we do know that Kaladin suffers from seasonal affective disorder). These are all little things mentioned throughout the books. 3. shared stories = bond The part of the story I found most interesting when it has come to our two main POV characters thus far is how and when they choose to talk to others about their past. Both are quite close-lipped on the subject, but occasionally let information out to others. Shallan tells Jasnah and Adolin a little bit (note that she opens up to Jasnah more than Adolin, although I see nothing strange in this. Its just an observation). And Kaladin talks to his fellow bridgemen about his past sometimes. But neither of them tells another soul anywhere near as much as they tell each other. Adolin has only seen once the implications of what Shallan has gone through once when she snapped at him for wanting to protect her (that scene was awesome by the way). The bond that is formed from sharing your deepest darkest secrets with another is usually a very intense one in fiction. That person usually goes on to be the other person’s greatest ally or their greatest foe. The intensity of their situation and the dramatic way of revealing their true selves to each other only ­adds to this. 4. same position = continued understanding of each other The story is being set up as two young attractive people who are attracted to each other being placed in similar situations where no one on Roshar except a very few can relate. And we are to expect nothing happens? The fact that they start off the next book apart has me curious when this is going to move forward, but move forward it will. As we are starting to see it, Kaladin and Shallan will not likely have any other KR’s that they feel like they can relate to any time soon. Renarin is a mess and Shallan thinks he is crazy. Not to mention he belongs to a notoriously secretive Order of the KR. Kaladin has his bridgemen and Adolin but none of them will fully understand. Shallan also has Adolin, but he is a mess and will not likely want to deal with Shallan’s issues with his own mess to take care of. That is if she confides in him at all. One would imagine she may have Jasnah in the near future but I believe Sanderson has said Jasnah is kind of off on her own for a while. Bonds form between people sharing high stress situations. Kaladin and Shallan have already done this and will likely be forced to do it again. Shallan ended WoR super pissed at Pattern and may want to get rid of him, but who has lost their spren before and may understand what the cost of this may be? And Kaladin is going to have a tough time coming to terms with his new station, but who has knocked him straight on that front a few times before? It may be nothing, but I noticed on the diagram of all the Orders, Windrunners and Lightweavers are placed a polar opposites sides of the chart (Windrunners upper left and Lightweavers lower right) with a direct line attaching the two. Is this a nod to their opposite personalities yet connected paths? 5. the adolin factor The way Adolin and Kaladin both treat Shallan is also very different. Adolin clearly respects Shallan as he has been brought up to respect women but feels the need to protect her. He doesn’t do this because he views her as his property or anything else like that. He does it because he is a good person who wants to help those in need, especially women. Kaladin mistrusts and does not respect her at first. She has to earn his trust and respect. And because of this he lets her be herself and more self-sufficient. She shows resentment of this behavior at first, being angry that he walks to fast and that he doesn’t immediately offer to carry her pack. But she must subconsciously appreciate it as she starts to actually care that he sees her in a negative light. He is some-what helpful to her in the chasms, but for the most part he expects her to keep up with him and pull her own weight in their travels. This in turn allows her to show more of herself to him as there isn’t a level of expectation of who she should be. Later she appears to go to great pains to prove to him she is not who he thinks she is. Shallan’s attraction to Adolin is significantly more physical than spiritual or intellectual. Most of the time when she is describing him positively its by his physical attributes. She acknowledges he is not intelligent and accepts this. The one time she does describe his deeper qualities such as his kindness and his loyalty she immediately proceeds to compare them to Kaladin. Her deepest description of Kaladin involves her saying he is brilliant, passionate, has smoldering resolve, and tempting arrogance. These words are meant to convey a much deeper feeling than kind, noble, and genuine that she uses to describe Adolin. We as readers are meant to see the large differences in the description of these two men. I love Adolin. He is a great character and is promising to be an even better one in the next book. I am the most excited to see where his story is going out of all of the characters. But the guy is not ready to settle down and be married. Even Navani points out in TWoK that Adolin should court various girls and gives him a “good for you.” He has enough interest to want to keep Shallan, but continues to look at other women. I am not saying this is a bad thing, but maybe just don’t do it in front of Shallan, dude. She sees it at the beginning, and that’s fair. They didn’t know each other and he didn’t realize at that point she was different. But then he keeps doing it! She is fully aware of this and lets it go. And honestly, if her feelings were completely invested she would have expressed more irritation to this at least in her own thoughts. I totally understand not acting on jealousy, but we get to hear her thoughts and she barely seems to care that he does it other than as a hurdle to get over to ensure the engagement goes through. And this brings me to my next point, Shallan herself is the biggest hurtle to this relationship in three ways. Don’t get me wrong, all of the things I am about to mention could be taken care of through story-telling. She could easily get over every one of these and make this relationship work. But where I see this going, her getting over the next three hurdles can only result in the engagement and potential marriage becoming null and void. 1. This whole basis of this relationship is that Shallan is using Adolin. She’s not using him for any selfish or diabolic reasons, and I can respect that. But the stakes are high for her, much higher than they are for him. She is desperate for it to work in order to save her family. Desperation makes us ignore many things that we would otherwise find important, like feelings of love and passion. 2. She is not herself with him, at least not completely. We see some awesome bits and pieces on how Shallan shows she is not like other girls, but much of it seems forced and its not complete. The scene about talking about BM’s while in shardplate is great to show this, but to me it just highlights how much she isn’t showing him of herself. She never shows him the extent of her drawing from memory abilities. He is not the first person she tells or shows her KR powers to-both Dalinar and Kaladin are aware of her abilities before he is as well as her artistic prowess. She blows up at him after leaving the chasms but fails to explain her actions as she should to make him better understand why she responded in that way. He knows nothing of her past experiences with her parents. This is huge and way more important than people seem to realize. Brushing aside the fact that she told Kaladin all about it first, I would imagine once she got it off her chest to someone (even in an intense and highly emotional situation), she would have felt more comfortable telling Adolin if it was that important for him to know and understand her. Especially as she was given a very good opportunity for this very early on after leaving the chasm. Which leads me to my next point that maybe Shallan doesn’t actually fully know her real self. 3. This is by far the most important-the lies. Mraize tells Shallan when he last confronts her that Veil is the real her and that the noble woman Shallan is her pretend self. This is important because the noble women is the only version of Shallan that Adolin sees. So in case the reader hasn’t picked up on it before this point, its spelled out for you that Shallan is never herself with Adolin. The fiery con-artist who calls it like it is, that’s the real Shallan. In reality she is more likely a mix of the two and could never truly live without the lies, at least not while she is a KR. Her lies are the whole point of her becoming a KR and what draws Pattern to her. But the point is made. 6. History repeats itself There are clear comparisons, especially as WoR goes on, of the Kaladin/Shallan/Adolin love triangle and the Dalinar/Navani/Gavilar love triangle. The one worth noting the most is that both Navani and Shallan admit to being afraid of the intensity that Dalinar and Kaladin display, respectively. In TWoK Navani says, “I chose him because you frightened me. That intensity of yours… it scared your brother too, you know.” The phrasing is ironically similar. In the chasms Shallan is looking at Kaladin, thinking “There was a sort of rugged handsomeness to the fellow. Like the beauty of a natural rock formation, as opposed to a fine sculpture like Adolin. But Kaladin’s intensity, that frightened her.” When Shallan mentions it in WoR you are meant as a reader to recall what Navani had said about Dalinar in TWoK. The wording is almost exactly the same. Similar lines (and scenes) are thrown into books, movies, tv to draw comparisons. I would also like to point out that Shallan considers herself a naturalist, wanting to focus her scholarship on documenting flora and fauna. She compares Kaladin to something she is passionate about and Adolin to something that is secondary to her in art. 7. The complications The way I see it, there are only two major hurtles to this potentially romantic relationship. That is if you discount the imminent end of the world they appear to be going through and their “spren conflict.” The first hurtle is obviously Adolin. If history does truly repeat itself then Shallan will choose Adolin and that will be that. However, we are left at the end WoR with the question of where Adolin is headed in the story. He is surrounded by Knights Radiant but is not one himself. He just killed a man in cold blood and will likely have some serious guilt over that. We are left with Adolin at a fork in the road, unclear which path he will take. The second hurdle is the huge issue that Kaladin knows he is the one to kill Shallan’s brother. Based on her response to Amaram we know she is going to be devastated by the news that Kaladin is the one who actually killed Heleran. He will tell her eventually because he is honorable and could never live with himself without telling her the truth. This is an excellent plot device for them and the biggest hindrance to a potential relationship for them. I do not see it as being a long lasting issue. Shallan wound eventually have to acknowledge that people do terrible things sometimes, no one more than herself. She cannot fault Kaladin for killing her brother when her brother killed all his men. Also, there is a lot of foreshadowing in WoR that Heleran was up to a lot of stuff including potential involvement in the ghostbloods. So Shallan may not be in a place to be missing her brother overly much when she does find out about his death. One last thought on this, I had previously mentioned that the fact that Kaladin and Shallan’s spren hate each other would be a potential issue for a relationship. However, Syl doesn't seem to mind the idea based on the sample chapters, so i doubt Pattern would either.

Hey everyone. I know we're all excited for Oathbringer What are you all going to do the moment you open the box that came in the mail, that contains that beautiful, hardcover book? Will you scream with joy, and let the cake burn in the oven while you glory over the embossed cover? Will you jump in and start reading immediately, missing five important phone calls, but you don't even care? Does UPS come later at your house, so that at 10 pm, you'll scream with joy, awakening your dog (not like that) and not even caring that no work will get done the following day because you stayed up until 4 am reading?

If you find any, please post them here so that @PeterAhlstrom knows about them Chapter 19 “I assume,” Gavilar said, sounding amused, “that people he knows don’t casually go for strolls in highstorms Shouldn't this be 'that the people he knows don't casually go for strolls in highstorms '?

Hey guys! Tor.com is releasing all of Part One of Oathbringer in the coming weeks, until its release. Each week, we'll have a new thread for discussing the week's chapters, so we thought it'd be a good idea to make a topic compiling each of the Tor.com posts with the chapters, and our relevant 17S discussion topics. Keep in mind that we'll set it up so that, say, the topic on Chapters 4-6 will obviously contain info from previous chapters. But that isn't terribly surprising I'll pin the most recent week's discussion thread, I'm thinking. If you'd like older readings from throughout the year on Oathbringer, you can look at the old topic here, but I imagine these chapters will be the final versions of those scenes. Oathbringer Preview Chapters Prologue Prologue Discussion Chapters 1-3 Chapters 1-3 Discussion Chapters 4-6 Chapters 4-6 Discussion Chapters 7-9 Chapters 7-9 Discussion Chapters 10-12 Chapters 10-12 Discussion Chapters 13-15 Chapters 13-15 Discussion Chapters 16-18 Chapters 16-18 Discussion Chapters 19-21 Chapters 19-21 Discussion Chapters 22-24 Chapters 22-24 Discussion Chapters 25-27 Chapters 25-27 Discussion Chapters 28-30 Chapters 28-30 Discussion Chapters 31-32 Chapters 31-32 Discussion Interlude 3 Interlude 3 Discussion Released Interludes Ardent Alista Soulcaster Kaza

Based on this passage in the new chapters: I am led to believe that Odium is not, and never will be again, in top fighting shape. To hazard a guess, I'd say he got wounded killing Ambition and lost chunks of power like Ambition did. That might be a partial cause of the Evil, or the shades. That is assuming a lot though. Also, what does the Stormfather mean by 'forces?' My initial assumption was Cultivation, but I don't think it has to be that simple. Maybe the 'survival' Shard is actually just lying in wait for the day Odium over-extends himself. This Shard doesn't have any of its power tied up in a planet, while Odium is Invested at this point, and apparently wounded to boot. Maybe the other Shards, known or not, are watching closely to pounce on any mistake Odium makes. Maybe the worldhopping community has some potential plans they could put into motion if things start heating up. I don't know that any of these are likely, but I do think that, whatever the answer, this is going to be important, at least behind the scenes. I was always a bit bothered that it seemed Odium came out on top of all these fights without any sign of injury. I guess that wasn't the case, which makes me feel a lot better.

A very premature thread... but couldn't help asking. Hoid has welcomed one person back at the end of each of the books back to the physical realm. First, the man who calls himself Taln and Jasnah the second time around. Will the pattern repeat? If so, who will it be? Vote / post your thoughts!

Hey folks, I usually get a signed copy from Brandon's website (http://store.brandonsanderson.com/), but I am not seeing it. I went to his other website (https://brandonsanderson.com/) and read the latest update about the release party at BYU. It mentioned ordering it from the BYU book store, but I am uncertain if I can just get it shipped to my house or if I have to go to Utah to pick it up (not happening). It also mentioned that Weller Books was going to ship signed copies, but the link is broken. So my question is, how do I get a signed, hardcover copy of Oathbringer???

Apologies if this has already been raised. It just occurred to me and there are too many posts to read through to try and figure it out if it has already been noted. So I wonder if this scene where Dalinar invites the archer into his service might have been intended to set some precedent where Dalinar takes a very pragmatic view of the realities of loyalty (and oaths) to a particular side. I can see that it would give him some degree of forgiveness toward Eshonai because she was very much a soldier. Who I wonder about though, is Szeth. I think the scene may be intended to demonstrate that Dalinar is capable of accepting Szeth into the fold in his new order when he is made aware of the circumstances of Szeths assassination of Gavilar. As is mentioned in the other threads, when it comes to keeping oaths and following the ideals of honor there is nobody who does that as completely as does Szeth. I think the purpose of the scene was less about exploring the history of Dalinar, and more about exploring the character and how he is capable of forgiving what is done in war in service to your cause. Thoughts?

The intervention of another Shard irrevocably changing the balance of power in the system. My theory is rooted in the knowledge that Odium is diminished somewhat making him weaker than other Shards, though he would be safe from Cultivation as her intent likely keeps her more passive another Shard would be able to defeat him. So that gives me 3 main variants of this idea, A) Odium is shattered and/or absorbed by another Shard between books 5 and 6 creating a new antagonist and changing the game entirely B.) Odium finally absorbs another Shard, prizing his survival over his purity, making the Champion plan likely unusable and likely necessitating intervention from outside forces C) Another Shard arrives in Roshar but doesn't immediately shatter and/or absorb Odium, likely being hostile to the native humans this could force a 3 way conflict and/or intervention from outside forces All of these are also founded on the idea of needed a significant status quo shift for the second arc and the Desolation of the first arc being over by then, it would also be likely that Hoid might try to engineer one of the above scenarios given his opposition to Odium and all could result in the destruction of life on Roshar which he's stated wouldn't deter him from his goal. I admit this is all a bit vague and wild but let me know what you think and if you agree which scenario is most likely or the one you would most like to see. edit: also please be forgiving of this topic, I haven't started one in a long time if ever.

No one had made this yet, so I figured I would! Who do you think it is?

In Shallan's new chapters we've noticed several mentions of the patterns on the walls of Urithiru. Now, this may just be a coincidence due to her greater aesthetic refinement, but I think there is more to it than that. We know that Lightweaving involves "Light, Sound, and other waveforms." To me, the patterns could very well be some of these other "waveforms." Thus, the majority of the information the Radiants had gathered is encoded in the walls, waiting to be unlocked by an appropriately aware Lightweaver. This is part of Urithiru's protection, since even if an enemy gets inside, they can't get at any of the Radiant's information since they aren't bonded with a Cryptic and don't have the surges to interpret it. Let me know if you have any other ideas as to why so much time has been spent expositing the walls.