BaarZel

I have no idea if this has been brought up before. I could also be totally off base. But the Selish star chart has a planet named "Donne | Doo." Described as being very warm, barren, and prone to dust storms. Really struck me as a possible homage to the Dune series. Just thought I'd share.

They would obviously get those memories once fully connected with the sword. The new memories become tied with the sword and bonded to the next person each Desolation. Or maybe Nalan isn't Nalan after all...

We know that when Returned...return. They lose all their memories and are infused with huge amount of investiture. Any chance that Heralds return by...Returning? Dead guy wakes up bound to an honorblade and instead of a "blank" memory, he gets the Heralds consciousness throw the blade. This reboot would probably not be instantaneous/smooth and could explain Taln's madness. (him losing his blade might also exacerbate the issue). We also know that Returned can experience "flashbacks" a la Lightsong the bold. This also ties into the theme of appearances. Brandon stresses that Kal's scar's remain bc of his own perception of himself just like Vasher explains about Returned in WB. Taln, may not yet be Taln, bc he doesn't perceive himself as such...yet.

That isn't quite what he says, He says he can keep from looking returned they same way that the returned gods can look they way they think they should be perceived. It doesn't really explain why he can't access the abilities of his divine breath.

I was literally sketching out my thoughts on this topic/ related breath-stormlight thoughts. Here's what im really curious about: we know that Vasher Breath-dumps pretty frequently as is often without breath. We also know he dumped his Breaths into Denth and Arsteel before he killed them. And we have him saying "I don't have any Breath remaining," he said quietly. "It was very hard to locate you." (warbreaker e-book) So Vasher has 0 Breaths and no benefits that we normally attribute to the Divine Breath...But he is certainly still alive.... So what's the deal. I assume that he has some internal deadline by which he needs to have a Breath for consumption. But it would also seem that He has lost his Divine Breath somewhere in the past. Do we know anything about this? I haven't done a full readthru in a while so I may be forgetting something.

I don't get why people keep thinking that the heralds are darkeyes. Baxil's Mistress is described as having pale purple almost white eyes, definitely not dark, and she is the only "supposed" Herald I think the forums are in general agreement on.

Trapped in another world? or trapped in a cycle of torture and war because of a pact he made with nine others?

I completely agree with you. I was only saying in this response to a post that suggested that when the Listeners reference seeing the humans capture spren that they were referring to fabrials or Gavilar's sphere. Even Vasher admits that the awakened nightblood should have had sentience. He says that it should not have been more "awake" than Vasher's cloak. But I wonder what would happen if they had tried to awaken an actual shardblade? Would the combination of the Breath of endowment and the left over spren bits from Roshar create some weird Spren Frankenstein zombie of terror? probably not...but maybe

So I just had a rush of a few thoughts. Namely, Nightblood's personality is oddly similar to that of Syl as she just gains her individuality, and even that of Pattern I suppose. That kind of gets me thinking that nightblood is kind of like an artificial spren, which definitely fits with the Shardblade characteristic. Moreover, What if nightblood is actually a shardblade that's been awakened. OR what if it's the missing Honorblade? Crazy, yes. Unlikely, yes. Crazy unlikely, you bet. But that's why the forums are here i guess.

I think it's quite possible that what the Listeners perceive as humans "capturing" spren, could easily be the manifestation of the Nahel bond. To the Listeners it would just look like a bunch of humans control some spren and can turn them into weapons and do magic and possibly make armor(?) I'd say that's pretty similar to what the Listeners ended up being able do with the different forms and such.

Really what I'm saying is you have no idea who Liss is. You think you do because you watched Liss behave a certain way with Jasnah. But that's entirely possible to be meaningless. We also saw how Veil acted in front of Mraize. Turns out Shallan is different than Veil, its just acting. That said, I am not even 100% sold on this. I think it just ties up the prologue in the most relevant way. There are obviously several other possibilities. Liss's "supposed personality" is just not a proof for anything

I don't think it's fair to use the attitude and behavior of people whose vocation consists of changing their attitudes and behaviors as a good measure of who they might be. As I mentioned in my other post. Both women are master of dialect manipulation and of the "long con" referred to as extended observations. Remeber how stealthily Tyn crept up on after 6 years it's not surprising that Liss would be different than she once appeared. And who knows what her circumstances have become. She may never have even been established as a spy following the assassination of Gavilar. Certainly a lot of unknowns.

I posted about his in the topic regarding Jasnahs survival. I am of the opinion that Liss doesn't really have a Blade and was just using Szeth to do assassinations for her. Until she, like everyone else that used him, becaome disgusted/freaked out, and sold him. This connected to my theory that Liss and Tyn are actually one and the same.

She'd given up Szeth because it seems they alays give up Szeth. He even says himself how usually hen he is used to kill its sneaky, leaving no trace...maybe like gouging out their eyes. Im also not saying Jasnah prepared as well as she should, she definitely left behind Shallan, which is bad. But Tyn setting up a pretty awful assassination attempt just kind of seems like evidence that she didn't want to kill Jasnah. However, Tyn did have to kill Shallan. She knew too much about Tyn, and now that Jasnah is "dead" her agreement is over. Most importantly, I'm not trying to argue this is the only possibility, far from it. Even i admit it's a stretch. However, given the information conveyed to us in the prologue, which otherwise is completely irrelevant. I think this makes a lot of sense.

Jasnah definitely had agreements with at least 12 other assassins, and if Tyn was good enough to be hired to kill her, it stands to reason that she was good enough to be contacted by Jasnah as well. But even more importantly, I'm not convinced that Tyn isn't the same person as Liss. They are both female assassins and they are both described as having a talent with accents and dialects, with Bavish being particularly emphasized. Given that six years have gone by and physical differences could easily be explained by circumstances, and we know Tyn has a way to change her eye color as well. But what about Liss's Shardblade? She is the weeper, afterall. Maybe... I suspect that Liss was really using Szeth as a tool for assassinations and that she never had a Blade at all. This also would make it more interesting from Szeth's POV because he would have some actual storyline for this part as opposed to being "I was a slave of an assassin, but I didn't kill." This would actually tie the prologue into the actual novel really well. Jasnah meets with a female assassin, skilled in dialects and prolonged observation (aka a long con) and in passing, mentions to us an agreement to warn her against assassination attempts against her. ----> a little later, viola! an assassination attempt against her...which she survives!! how relevant! Later we have Shallan meeting a female assassin adept at dialects and long cons ---> its later revealed that she arranged the hit on Jasnah, and wasn't expecting to actually get paid...that's odd considering she holds herself in high esteem... Maybe because she had kept her end of the 6 yr old agreement to warn Jasnah if a hit was ever ordered. with this, the prologue goes from kind of ironic to completely relevant.

Hey, so forgive me if someone else already mentioned this, but I'm almost positive Jasnah knew about the assassination. In the prolougue she mentions her deal with Liss and other assassins to give her knowledge of assassination jobs taken out on her and her family. It would explain why she was so nervous beforehand, and perhaps allowed her time to prepare for the worst case scenario.

I didn't understand the nature of the pot because I'm not really trying to say they were the same coat. My original point was pointing out that both character are described as wearing similar coats. It's the text that describes each with the word "coat." I know there are many kinds of coats, but if Sanderson is going to describe two outfits similarly and then use the word "coat" for both, I'm not gonna write it off because there are a lot of varieties of coats.

I don't understand the nature of this comment. Coat = coat. Both of them had coats with silver buttons. I am sure Nalan's was much different looking, but I'm not trying to say that they are wearing the same coat, merely suspiciously similar styles.

I should have been a little more clear. Nalan and Tozbek are definitely not described identically. That said, for being two seemingly unrelated characters, I think it is a little too similar to write off as a coincidence, especially considering the author. Also, "One of his minions entered behind him, a man in a black and silver uniform, less ornamented (Lift)" We have to admit that Tozbek was at least wearing a black and silver uniform.

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but has anyone noticed this: from tWoK- City of the bells describing Tozbek "He wore...a silver buttoned black coat. She's imagined him getting that scar on his jaw in a furious sea battle..." Ummm...don't we know someone else who wears a black uniform with silver buttons with a scar on his face? Don't know what to do with this information, please help.

I think I found the some more support for Szeth knowing that his sword is not an Honorblade “Yes,” Taravangian said. “I have heard only hints. Your people are secretive. But yes . . . I see, it is one of the two that allow Regrowth. Kholin must have it.” Szeth swayed back and forth, though he did not seem conscious of the motion. Even now, he moved with a fighter’s grace. Storms. “This man I fought,” Szeth said, “he summoned no Blade.” “But he used Stormlight,” Taravangian said. “Yes.” “So he must have an Honorblade.” “I . . .” “It is the only explanation.” “It . . .” Szeth’s voice grew colder. “Yes, the only explanation. I will kill him and retrieve it.” granted it is only supposition on my part, but I believe Szeth was about to say something like "I use stormlight and have no Honorblade" before being shot down by Mr T. that kind of response is the only thing that would weren't the cutoff the Mr T interjected. That combined with the "impossible" bond, and his blade looking nothing like the honorblade descriptions in the prologue leave me pretty certain that Szeth's sword was not an Honorblade. Also, if it was the blade that granted Szeth his powers, and Nalan broke that bond, then we should see Szeth pretty much powerless. Which would kind have make him a weird asset for Nalan to want anyway. On a rather sidenote, and this might be discussed elsewhere, but does anyone else think it interesting that we see Nalan take down a surgebinder with regrowth, and then we see him use regrowth on Szeth? Could is have captured Ym's spren for the fabrial?

Im sorry, this may have been addressed elsewhere. But we know that Ka healed the soul in his hand after being sliced by Szeth's blade. The coppermind on regrowth is pretty clear that this is the capability of the regrowth surgebinding, and not simply the normal capacity of stormlight healing. But why does kal have this ability if he is only a Windrunner. I admit that maybe regrowth is special bc it allows for the possibilty to heal even after death, but i think that kind of makes regular stormhealing a "regrowth light" which to me undermines the value of the surgebinding.

Hi guys, First post on the site. I was wondering about this topic as well. I wonder is it important that Nalan references that szeth's bonds have been broken, "physically and spiritually?" Knowing that there is another realm, the cognitive, and that the spren are of the cognitive world and presumably with what the human is "bonding" with, this omission struck me as particularly salient. Does this imply that Szeth's bond was with something else? is that why Syl finds the blade so horrifying? Just throwing out some thoughts. Really happy to be part of the community!