Jaaxter

Given that a worldhopper from Scadrial is pretty high up in their ranks, I expect you're correct about their interests extending beyond Roshar. 

With regard to Eshonai's comet-spren, I had always assumed that it was a Willshaper spren. My reasoning for this is not based on the spren's appearance but on Eshonai's personality. She is an avid explorer who hates leading troops and just wants to do her Star Trek thing- explore strange new worlds, meet strange new peoples, and draw her maps. Doesn't her mother ramble about how she used to disappear for days at a time, exploring? I don't have a source within easy reach, but I think Eshonai fits the psychological profile of a Willshaper much better than a Dustbringer or Skybreaker.

Maxal, I think your last sentence would make an excellently succinct version of the oath: "I will do what others cannot." Said another way (the way I would personally say it if I ever got the chance to take a Dustbringer's oaths), "I will not flinch from a task that others find distasteful." Current speculation is that the Dustbringers are some of the most impulsive and... morally flexible of the Knights Radiant. They might be willing to do something morally unjust if "someone had to do it."

Such as (one might offer as an example), putting down a man who had definitively abandoned all moral decency yet still hid within the safety of the law, having done nothing that could be decisively pinned to him in legal proceedings. Classic Al Capone stuff- we all know he did it, but no one can prove it in a court.

Of course, that sort of oath might be the third for Dustbringers, after something like "I will destroy those who would harm the innocent." Perhaps that is too similar to the Windrunners second oath, but the Dustbringers seem a more... aggressive order.

@Moogle: Is it in fact confirmed that holding an Honorblade changes your eye color? I believe we have only seen Szeth's eyes change color when holding his. I don't know if Nalan's eyes changed color when he summoned his Blade (or indeed, if it even is his Blade) but the eye color change for Szeth may be something along the line of his eyes turning blue because that is the color of the Windrunners; see also Kaladin when he took his third level in Windrunnner. Whereas Jezrien (presumably) has sapphire eyes and thus would not see any color change when he held his own blade.

As far as "Taln" goes, I just re-read both books and noticed that his Blade at the end of WoK is described as long, thin, and straight- like a "spike." The Blade that Dalinar takes and briefly wields in WoR is describes as sinuous- like flames, if I recall correctly. Very definitely not the same Blade. Hoid is, I believe, the most likely holder of "Taln's" original blade.

Does she work on a commission basis? Serious question.

 

THIS. IS. AMAZING!!

I can put you in touch, certainly. I will PM you.

Kobold King and Argent, I know. She's pretty awesome.

This is a piece I commissioned from my younger sister- I needed some wall art for the new apartment and I convinced my wife that it would be a great idea. My sister and I are both diehard Sanderfans, so it seemed perfect. I asked for "something from the Stormlight Archive" and the attached painting is what she sent back. Can't wait to get it on my wall!

The glyph is a stylized version of the Kholin family glyph and the mark on the shardblade is my sister's signature.

I would have attached the .png but it was slightly too large... so .jpg it is.

-The Unmade will mostly bring themselves down through constant scheming and meddling in each others' plans.

-Each faction will be its own worst enemy and only rarely clash in open combat.

-It will take until book 7 for most of Alethkar to actually acknowledge the Voidbringers as a threat.

-The newly-formed Knights Radiant will cloister themselves in Urithiru, only emerging to glare coldly at each other, sniff, and make vague pronouncements such as "Odium is as Odium does," and "Surrender to Cultivation is the only victory."

It turns out that everyone close to the main character is actually related to him resulting in slightly awkward stuff.......

Resulting in Sanderson finally having said main character explicitly tell another character that he isn't related (by blood) to a character he has been boinking, just to finally put a stop to the internet's incessant cries of "Incest!"

Oh, wait...

Shardblades and Honorblades are not really differentiated between, as was stated by Kurkistan. I can't provide a citation at this point, but I think Brandon pretty clearly said that the healing abilities of Stormlight are limited by what the wielder believes about him or herself.

When Luke sees his X-Wing rising out of the swamps of Dagobah, he says he didn't think it was possible. Yoda tells him, "That is why you fail." Same concept here, which seems to be a common one in fantasy fiction.

This is a theory borne partially out of wishful thinking. As I was reading and re-reading all of the scenes where Szeth and Kaladin use their powers, it struck me that the Gravitation surge (half lashing, reverse lashing) appears far more powerful than the Adhesion surge (full lashing). Notably, we see Szeth Lash a door closed, and Kaladin Lashes rocks to a cliff face and himself to a horse. Doubtless, the surge is used more often than that, but it doesn't seem to stand up to the powers of flight, basic telekinesis, or making people fall into the sky.

Realizing that Skybreakers share the Gravitation surge was rather disappointing, since I felt like it spoiled the Windrunners' thunder to share the "best" surge (and thereby the power of flight) with another order.

But then I started thinking... what if each order specialized in one of their surges and the other surge is a secondary power? Windrunners should be able to do far more with the Gravitation surge, so perhaps the Skybreakers can use Gravitation, but not powerfully enough to fly, since it is not their primary power. By this logic, it stands to reason that each order's specialization would also be the surge clockwise from their order's glyph on the chart in The Way of Kings. That way, no surge specialization would be shared by two orders.

The immediate problem, however, is that from what little we know of the other Knights Radiant orders, everything seems to indicate that any sort of specialization would be the surge counterclockwise from their order glyph. Lightweavers are clearly the specialists of Illumination (as their name suggests), not Transformation. From what we saw of Lift (as well as the name of the order and the epigraph describing them), Edgedancers seem gifted in Friction, not Progression. If Ym is a good representative of the Truthwatchers, they are better at Progression than Illumination. At least, that is what came most easily to him. Renarin provides inconclusive evidence, since his self-healing could also be the passive effect of holding Stormlight.

Elsecallers could go either way, perhaps. We know that Jasnah is incredibly skilled in soulcasting (Transformation). She isn't too shabby at Transportation, either. Nevertheless, since it is strongly hinted that Willshapers are "explorers," the Transportation surge would logically be their domain.

When asked what order he would like to be, Brandon stated that he would want to be a Windrunner so that he could fly [citation needed]. This doesn't rule out the possibility that Skybreakers can also fly and Brandon simply would prefer having Adhesion to Division, but it is the only WoB I have come across on the subject.

Thoughts, notes, relevant passages that I have missed?

As Tempus noted, the danger in that instance would be to your own flesh. The bones in your fingers are fairly fragile things and punching with "enhanced strength" without enhanced durability (such as pewter would give) would... well, in the immortal words of Bane, "That would be extremely painful... for you."

Holding a small iron cylinder in your hand might protect you from cutting your own fingers with the push, but by "pushing" on the metal, your punch is actually being pulled along by an external force. Importantly, this means that your weight is no longer behind it and your punch won't carry a good follow-through. The shock would just get absorbed into your arm when it lands, and you might even be pulled off-balance. 

On the other hand, a group of people dedicated to protecting them and interpreting their visions could work wonders.

Not unlike the priests in Hallendren, eh? Of course, those squires, if allowed the power of interpretation, could swiftly become the actual rulers of the order.

I think as far as the series goes, you would get RAFO'd on that question.

I think its not cryptics, it could be the next spren. A new order which shares a single surge of Shallan with what Elhokar going to belong.

That would peg him as a budding Truthwatcher or Elsecaller. We already have examples of main characters in these orders in the books, making this theory somewhat less likely. Nevertheless, I heard a plausible theory that Elhokar may be under the influence or oppression of some form of Odiumspren- envyspren or inadequacyspren. As mentioned above, the behavior of the watcher seems highly ominous.

I was under the impression that, for the time between the creation of Ruin's prison and the ascension of Sazed, Preservation had altered the workings of Allomancy slightly, so that Atium mistings would be born in place of one of the other varieties (I think it was cadmium). He also insured that, within the magic he fueled, Atium was incredibly useful. This way, Seers and Mistborn would constantly be seeking it out and burning it, ensuring that there wasn't ever a large amount for Ruin to find if he escaped.

Do you have a reference for that first theory? About Seers replacing Pulsars? The impression that I got in the Alloy of Law is that the secret organization is trying to breed an Atium misting, since it has been 300 years between the series, a number that is, coincidentally, the amount of time stated as necessary for the Pits of Hathsin to regenerate. Are you implying that with Harmony in charge, Atium mistings are no longer a thing?

It is interesting to speculate on a new shard metal replacing Atium and Lerasium. I recall a thread recently about trying to come up with a question to put to Brandon asking whether killing Sazed would drop two normal shards (Ruin and Preservation) or one powerful shard (Harmony).

Everyone seems to think this is about the Heralds or one Radiant from each order... What if it is just referring to the battle with the Parshendi? The rattle doesn't say that they are alone. I haven't done a shard count to confirm what I am thinking, but they probably had around 10 blades there.

 

Adolin, Renarin, Dalinar (Taln's), Shallan (Even if she didn't fight), Then Adolin won 3 blades in duels? Not counting the one Moash has that would put us at 6. I think the armies that joined Dalinar had at least 2. Then Kaladin joined the fight with one... That puts the count at an uncertain 9. We will need a final tally to really have a say, but that is what I am thinking.

All in all, the dramatic phrasing of the rattle "With shardblades alight" seems to suggest something a bit more dramatic than what happened at Stormseat- I would expect that particular phrase to indicate surgebinders with live blades, not just a combined total of Shardbearers.

But hey, it's fun to speculate!

Given how Kaladin describes and directly compares Shallan (post-Chasm) with Tien, I figure Tien was a proto-Lightweaver. 

Granted, I may be slightly biased in my reading of this, since my own younger brother is almost exactly like Tien in a lot of ways and I could NEVER see him as a Cryptic-attracting person. If we are going to point fingers at a KR order for him, I would say possibly Edgedancers (because of compassion), but I am more inclined to agree with those who say Tien was likely a mundane.

Assuming they did know about it's properties though, a thin layer of aluminium on the surface of armor would be a huge advantage against a Shardbearer. You rightly point out that it doesn't help with regular troops, nor with the abilities shardplate provides, but given that one of the only recognized tactics for bringing down a shardbearer is to mob him (against which the sweeping blows of a shardblade result in horrendous casualties), surely it would still be an incredible improvement over conventional armor. It would probably easily be scratched off by other troops or the shardbearer's fists etc, but it would still be a huge improvement over nothing. Like a bullet proof vest - lots of ways they're useless (getting shot in the head etc), but still save lives. 

Plating a suit of armor with aluminum would still be incredibly expensive. Sure, you could have an elite group of Shardslayers who make it their business to take down enemy shardbearers when they appear on the battlefield, but that is a massive investment that would easily be lost. Shallan's necklace was worth what, twenty emerald broams? Perhaps forty? Assume something ludicrous like a 300% markup because it's the jewelry industry, folks. Let's go with 10 emerald broams of materials. Since aluminum is soulcast, you can bet your boots that the original material was something dirt-cheap and easy to craft. Anyway, I can't make a firm statement about the Rosharan jewelry industry's typical profit margins, but let's just say that aluminum is 5 emerald broams per ounce to soulcast. So, that strike team wearing (basically) gold-plated armor would be far too valuable to send into combat, since they would be prime targets and have absolutely no combat advantage against normal troops. Thus, they stay in your reserves.

Where would you station them in your reserve battalions? You can't spread them out across your deployment because they are of no use flying solo. Even if a shardbearer can't slice through your armor/weapon, they are still wearing powered armor and swinging blades the length of a polearm. They can hit harder, move faster, and leap farther than any of you. You would need a team to take them down, and to make sure that a normal enemy soldier doesn't walk up behind your team and shank them while they are dueling the shardbearer. 

So your team waits in the center reserves. A wild shardbearer appears and attempts to crush your army's left flank. By the time a messenger reaches the strike team from all the way over there, you have lost two battalions of spearmen. By the time the strike team reaches the battle, he has routed another battalion and his supporting troops have filled in the wedge behind him, threatening to isolate your left wing and roll up the flanks of your army's center. Seeing this special team of soldiers in bright shiny armor charging him, the shardbearer will probably just fade back into the ranks of his army, having inflicted enormous casualties, broken your troops' morale, and given his own forces a vastly superior tactical position.

If he decides to engage, he will likely try to draw your team close enough to his own lines that his supporting soldiers can mob your Shardslayers. As has been discussed, aluminum makes terrible armor against steel weapons. And adding that aluminum plating to your armor is still going to make it heavier, either forcing you to encumber your Shardslayers or trim steel off the plates, making them weaker.

Oh, and arrows. Arrows won't do a whole lot to shardplate [citation needed], so if enemy archers saw your Shardslayer team dueling a shardbearer, their instinct would be to loose as many arrows as possible into the melee. This would probably not work out well for the Shardslayers, who are either wearing cumbersome armor or weak armor, depending on your choice in the above paragraph.

Even if aluminum armor somehow cannot be cut by shardblades, that's still a big, heavy sword that will inflict some serious blunt trauma. And if the shardbearer simply dismisses his blade and calls for his hammer, you're likewise screwed. 

Think of aluminum-armored Shardslayers like the Spy from the board game Stratego. When your General is wreaking havoc on the enemy's lines and a lone foe charges into the fray... you pull your general back and send a minion to take care of that lone soldier, who is almost invariably the spy. Except in this case, your spy cost as much to equip as all of your 8-strength pieces combined.

TL;DR version: troops in aluminum armor would be vulnerable in many special ways, too much so to justify the expense of the armor. Much more cost-effective to buy slaves (who cost only 2 emerald broams each), give them spears, and tell them that if they mob and take down a shardbearer, any survivors will be freed.

The Voidbringers brought on the desolations and fought the KR and the Heralds.. If Kal, Adolin with basic plate and blade so effectively devasted so much of the Parshendi army I doubt they could have been voidbringers. Perhaps just a small incarnation of the power of the spren you are referring to. But I do believe it very likely that this is not the end of the voidbringers and we have only seen an incling of thier power. A special spren that will match the KR with thier own champions does sound plausible.. Many Parshendi only reached the first bond of the anti-KR or something like that??

I like this idea in theory, but the thought of Odiumspren forming tight, mutually beneficial bonds with their hosts seems out of character. I would assume the relationship to be more parasitic, with the host unable to willingly deepen the bond, but rather being overtaken by the corruption of Odium.

Furthermore, don't forget that we are starting to see "squires" to the Knights Radiant- Lopen, etc. It could be that the Parshendi in Stormform are roughly analogous to this. Although now that I say that, I realize that the KR squires do not (as of yet) seem to have any spren bonds, while the Stormform Parshendi very definitely have been taken by the red lightning-like spren.

As far as the OP's question regarding aluminum as a material for the shardblade guards, it is worth noting that what we think of as "aluminum" is actually an alloy much closer to duralumin from the Mistborn series. Pure aluminum is exceptionally soft- it gives at 7-11MPa of force. Copper, for example, doesn't give until 70MPa and bone resists until over 100MPa.

Additionally, aluminum is more likely to crumple than to shatter, and the latter is (if I recall correctly) what is described as happening in WoR to the shardblade guards.

I seem to recall that at one point it was discovered that the carvings were done with Dalinar's belt knife, but wasn't he always watched during the storms so that Navani could record what he saw? I, likewise, thought that Renarin's actions in Urithiru indicated that he was the one, all along. And as Vasteel pointed out, he would arouse no suspicions in the halls.

Granted, the fact that book 3 will be Szeth's book merely means that the flashbacks will be his. Considering that WoR was Shallan's book, I expected her to have a rather larger presence in the book than she did. She was a big part of it, but didn't overshadow the other characters the way that Kaladin did in WoK.

OP, did you catch where Nightblood's original wielder showed up in the book? A pretty big hint about Nightblood was dropped in a mid-book interlude.