Erunion

Did he read anything new at the reading? Or was it all stuff that's already been online?

Better ring to it - thrice-broken rules! Others for Threnody: Red eyed/green eyed monster! You blood shedding fool! You're not worth the silver to save! Shades be upon you! This is a world where bloody would probably a big curse word too.

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I wasn't sold on skater Kaladin until I saw that the skate was Slyphrena. Then I was sold. Well done. Well done indeed.

Agree with you on Jasnah. On Surgebinders, I'm pretty sure we have a WOB on this, but if someone could find it that'd be great: In order for a spren to bond to you, you need to have cracks in your spirit web for the spren to fill with Investiture. Trauma is the best known way to develop these cracks, although not necessarily the only way. So, yes, you can have Knights Radiant convictions that attract spren without being cracked, but the spren can't complete the bond until you ARE cracked, AFAIK. The only counterpoint to this, is how would Shallan have gotten 'cracks' BEFORE the whole debacle with her mother? So it's quite possible there are other, non-awful ways to allow for a spren bond.

It's likely similar to soul-forging - the better understanding you have of the thing (both the thing to be transmuted and the thing you want it to transmute INTO), the more real it will be. Soulcasting seems to put greater importance on knowing what you're turning it into (you need to really know the material/concept in order to impart the right intent), whereas soul-forging requires a thorough understanding of what the thing/concept was. Other than that, I see them as being cognitively fairly similar. And as Nyali said - the closer you are to the 10 essences the better, as you don't really need to understand them well at all; all the Spren seem to already have that cognitive imprint. EDIT: I suspect the difference between Soul-forging and Soulcasting could be that soulforging occurs more on the spiritual and is based more on Connection, whereas soulcasting occurs in the cognitive plane, and thus requires something else, maybe Understanding.

They do have 'normal' weather, but irregular seasons. We've seen it in book, and Kaladin hates it (he especially hates the weeping, but there's normal rain a few times too). Most precipitation build up is dropped during high storms, but not all.

Ah darn, there goes that theory. Thanks for the WOB! I thought they were just long-lived. In that case, the Ire are likely just a normal group of Elantrians, and the grey skin/infusion of dor-juice is needed to keep them going and powerful far away from Elantris

It's not about invulnerability, it's about IMMORTALITY. The Elantrians of the Reod are immortal. They can't die. They don't age. That's what this is about. Because, as far as I'm aware, healthy Elantrians can die. They do get old. But the Elantrians of the Reod are frozen in time, and thus cannot age. At least that's my (crazy-ish) theory.

Which fits, because they don't really seem like soldiers, do they? They have guards, but THEY aren't guards. They don't try to confront things directly (it seems).

The best read I have of Jasnah is that she's not interested in romance. She's too driven, too busy studying originally and now too busy saving the world. She seems an extremely driven, goal oriented person. I think it's more suiting for her character that she just doesn't care that much for relationships. Not truly asexual, but has other priorities so strongly that it her sexuality is excluded; unimportant to her. That doesn't mean she's asexual, straight, lesbian, or anything. Just that she's busy.

You get it! It's awesome. (As it should be, that's a sick set up) Your bane is that you spill a drink all over it, while it's running, and everything burns out. The warranty people are then sucky when dealing with you. That's what you get I wish for a relaxing, refreshing weekend.

Having seen you step on a kitten recently, the Nightwatcher is not pleased. You are unworthy of your wish. Instead, you will eventually get a copy through much personal struggle (involving growth, and an improvement in compassion). Your bane is that you feel compelled at all times to grow in compassion. I wish to pass my course tomorrow (and all my others - and complete my degree as I am currently scheduled to).

Constant infusion of liquid Dor? Maybe that's why they drink it - and after having drunk it they're temporarily normal again (can heal themselves/etc.), but as it lasts for so short a time, it doesn't significantly reduce their lifespans.

*puts on aluminum foil hat* THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. That explains why Adolin/Renarin's hair is so blonde and fancy! It also explains why Vasher likes and gets along so well with Dalinar and his kids! Because they're ALSO Vivenna's kids! And he was getting along well with Vivenna! I buy this crazy. It's good crazy. In all seriousness: We know Vivenna went off with Vasher at the end of Warbreaker. We know Vasher (eventually) ended up on Roshar. Do you think Vivenna went with him? It's within the realms of possibility, and mad speculation (at least until warbreaker 2 comes out....)

Exactly! Its possible. Is it true? Maybe not. But as far as we know, it's possible.

This makes sense. Take an upvote my friend!

In other words: Magic. Or if you prefer, applied AonDor

There appear to be two native races on Roshar, the Aimians and the Listeners/Parshendi, both of whom are more 'cognitive' than humans. Humans appear to be a non-native species, that was brought to the world (likely by Honour/Cultivation). Frost in the letter implies that Roshar was designed specifically by Adonalsium (whereas, say, Scadrial was a combined effort between Ati and Leras). So it's likely He was having fun creating new species, ecology, and everything. Herdazians, Horneaters, and possibly some others are the result of interbreeding between Humans and Listeners/Aimians. What I'm curious about, is what's up with the hair. Alethi have Jet black hair, and Iriali have GOLDEN hair. Both stand out from 'lesser' hair colours, and both breed true in a way that other hair colours don't. Could the Iriali have been 'Cultivations' race, and the Alethi 'Honours race'? A group of people who were archetypical of their shard and who the Shards marked with hair colour? And that's not even mentioning Amber, Violet and other weird eye colours. EDIT: Or what's going on with lighteyes/darkeyes. Because the mechanics of Heterochromia on Roshar do not match those on Earth, which implies that Something Is Up.

We have WOB that Roshar is actually very Lush, and I'm inclined to agree - our vision of a barren, rocky Roshar, while cool, is only true during certain seasons and right before Highstorms. What we've seen is that there's TONS of grass that's very high, while one of our heroes (I think it was Shallan's journey, but it could have been Kaladin's) is travelling to the shattered plains they discuss how the grass is high and wavy, but pulls back into the stone in a ring around their caravan leaving them a rocky 'road'. Jah Keved, around the Davar estate at least, is described as being COVERED with vines and vegetation. As to the OP's questions; I would assume that stuff near the Origin is arid because it's been scoured clean. Nothing that can't hide can survive highstorms with the power and ferocity that they hit the East coast of Roshar. So you'll see some particularly tough plants, but much less vegetation overall (and fewer large plants). Azir could just be a bit less vegetative, and that's that. More of a drier, plains like region than verdant Jah Keved.

More specifically, their Gods back, plural. Which would ABSOLUTELY happen if he broke a sphere and released Odium. Which is one of the reasons I really like this theory. I am totally down with it being part of Odium that's being kept from him (because it mirrors the Atium so well; Atium on Scadrial is a metal, so it makes so much sense for Odium's physical form to be a gemstone on Roshar, where the physical focus is stone). I also suspect that it's Honour who did this, as a dying blow against Odium, sacrificing himself to protect Cultivation by hurting/holding Odium back. (I think he did this anyway, whether or not the sphere has Odium essence in it).

I'm not sure if it's logical, but I've had an idea brewing about the Ire for some time: That they were not just pre-Reod Elantrians, but that they used the Reod to grant them immortality, and that they were the ones that caused the Reod. Why? Because they KNEW it would freeze them. And what does that grant them? Immortality. The fallen Elantrians are immortal. Almost completely so, as they are 'frozen' (likely between realms?). Normal Elantrians, on the other hand, can and do die of heart attacks, old age, a knife at the wrong time, any normal thing. They can heal and are harder to kill, and are in generally healthier, but they aren't immortal. But fallen Elantrians are. A common theme in Fantasy (and history too! Look at all the people drinking mercury or looking for the philosophers stone) is that certain people will do almost ANYTHING to gain immortality. What if the Ire caused the Reod in order to gain immortality, but that things spiraled out of control and they fled? Likely they had a way to cause the Reod (and gain immortality) then restore things to almost-normal (the Investiture Juice they drink), and were planning on sharing it with all the other Elantrians (so not complete cremlings) but then things went horribly wrong - before they were able to clean the situation up, the serving class rebelled and killed all the most powerful Elantrians (this happened basically the day of the Reod). The Ire fled to the cognitive realm, and left Elantris behind. (Note, from the text we are told that the most powerful Elantrians were overwhelmed by the Dor and almost catatonic, much like Raoden is a few times during Elantris, and so were unable to do anything before being turned into Hoed. Which means that there is a good chance that they COULD have fixed Elantris like Raoden did, but were destroyed before they had a chance to puzzle it out). There are problems with this theory, specifically this one: If I'm right, why didn't they get fixed along with the rest when Raoden fixed Elantris? Maybe they would be as soon as they left the Cognitive realm, so they stay cognitive (until one of them gets a shard and makes them all immortal on the physical realm? hence their plan?)

Thanks for some of the feedback guys! Yeah, where I'm going with this is not just that Trell = Odium, but that SA5 ends with something going horribly wrong and releasing Odium. OR possibly, with something going ostensibly 'right' and Odium being 'banished', but with massive negative implications later on.

I was reading through the Words of Radiance reread on Tor.com, when I came to a line where it said that 'Brandon confirmed that the Wax and Wayne series occurs after SA5'. I had just finished rereading the Wax and Wayne series 2-3 days ago. And then it hit me like a load of bricks. Sazed is under assault by Trell and his minions who are trying to take down his planet. It was a sudden assault, and Sazed/Harmony is (as of Bands of Mourning) under a constant assault/pressure of some kind. Something he doesn't understand and that has just come recently. What if it's Odium - and what if it's because Odium is released from the Roshar system at the end of SA5. That somehow, someway, the bonds that Honour imposed on Odium, tying him down, are released at the end of SA5. Odium is cut loose, set free and goes to take on/take down Harmony. What do you guys think? Am I a truthwatcher, or just one of the ten fools?

Some corrections: Rosharans do NOT exclusively use 5 foot long short spears. They have a whole variety of spears, some shorter, some longer, and some likely quite long. (They are confirmed to have 'shortspears' and 'longspears' in brigthlord Amarams army. Do we ever get confirmation that the short spears are ACTUALLY 4-5 foot long? Or merely that they're short in comparison to the long spears? I got the idea that the spears used were likely 5-7 foot standard spears and 9-12 foot long spears). Secondly, the I generally pictured the Rosharans shield wall as not being a medieval shield wall, but as rather being a Grecian/Macedonian Phalanx, which is an entirely different beast. Phalanxes would generally maintain formation throughout entire battles. (Amaram's under-trained troops DON'T maintain formation, but that's because all the best troops/officers had already been shipped off to the front lines). AFAIK Parshendi warpairs didn't 'break shieldwalls' - rather they jumped OVER the shield walls. Generally, the Parshendi and the terrain forced the Alethi to change tactics, not by overwhelming them but by changing the environment of the conflict, forcing them to respond in a different manner. Also, I actually don't think a coin to the head WOULD kill Kaladin, as long as he had enough stormlight... And that's assuming you can hit him, which is not something you can rely on (unless you have atium and maybe duralumin...). Generally, against Koloss the Alethi have a HUGE advantage in concentration of force (not enough to negate Koloss completely. They're flipping powerful, but enough to make them FAR more effective than an equivalent Scadrian army).