kaellok

But it's mostly philosophical, not hands on. I could easily see Kelsier having a slight edge.

Very doubtful Odium is the Cosmere big bad. It's questionable if he's even the second half of Stormlight big bad. We are still in the first third of the Cosmere, after all, and revealing the actual villain so early in such an epic work is quite rare, and successful even less often. That said, we already know that Odium can put the Heralds through an eternity of torment in Vorin Hell, so there is definitely precedent for "fates worse than death"

And while I loved the first three SOIAF books, the last couple have been rather sharply down-hill in quality, imo. Compare that to Brandon, whose quality of writing tends to increase/get better with every novel he publishes. If working on different projects in between ensures that each book that we get is worth the wait, then I'll avoid gnashing my teeth too hard or voicing bitter complaints (even though I might think them. After all, I began binge reading nearly two decades ago, and all of my favorite authors combined cannot keep up with the rate I go through books.) Hells, if we're speaking honestly here, if Brandon said that looking at pictures of hats helped his writing process, I'd get him a couple thousand new ones every day. Whatever the man needs, or wants, or desires to keep writing at the same consistent level of quality that he's at, I endorse fully.

Please define "better." As it stands, I really have no idea which one is the better pachydermatologist.

How i read it and continue to believe: The spren is/are not the cause of the screaming. There are three different phenomena at work. 1. Spren flying around. There can be multiple radiant spren around one proto radiant; the presence of six does not mean there are six proto radiants. Shallan saw several cryptic spren through her drawings, and yet bonded only one. 2. Eshonai hears screaming when tuning to a specific song. This screaming reminded me of a radiant hearing screams while touching a Blade. I think that the void spren has done damage to her similar in nature to a radiant killing their spren; some key bit has been ripped out, but she only notices when she focuses on it. I would assume ALL Parshendi hear this screaming when tuning the song, and it is quite independent of radiantness. 3. Szeth hears the screaming of the damned souls he has killed. In the Highstorm/ Everstorm mix, Kaladin does, too. One of the Unmade fits this description, and when asked, Brandon indicated that may be what Szeth is hearing. There are other times when people hear screaming, but no red spren are around, too. The combination in a few instances seems coincidence, not design. Dalinar heard no screaming when neara red spren in his flashback, after all.

How is anything you listed more effective than using it herself? Unless it's the equivalent of a nuke, but even then using it at a time and place of her own choosing would be better than waiting for a human to randomly decide to use it. That's really my problem with your theory; without foresight (for real future seeing, which is, admittedly, a possibility), such a plan is ridiculous and almost sure to not succeed nearly as well as using it with purpose. I have several coworkers, and counting on them to do necessary tasks at appointed time is asking a lot, at times; counting on them to randomly do something and have it be useful is preposterous.

I thought she always gave you what she felt you needed, with little or no regard to what you asked for. There's that whole bit about how it doesn't matter how carefully you phrase your request, etc.

People tend to think that Szeth will be a Skybreaker, which requires bonding a high spren. That easily explains why they are near him. (We have seen a spren be... changed... to a red form before, in a Dal Dalinar vision.) I really don't see how either of the commonly presented theories are wrong based on what you've said so far. Nothing says the red spren were the cause of the screams, just that he saw them at the same time as he heard the noises. We also know that Szeth hears screaming all the time now, and it's probably related to one of the Unmade (on my phone now, hard to find/copy/paste the WoB I'm referencing.)

Welcome to the forums! While you're not the first to notice and speculate about this point (many, many thousands of combined hours have gone into the exploration of each novel, so that shouldn't be particularly surprising) it is one that many people miss unless looking for it. It seems fairly obvious to me that this is an Awakening easter egg, and due to Cosmere, also much more than that. Sadly, at this time, it does not provide any sort of conclusive evidence of our favorite Returned worldhopper.

Blades are from the Cognitive, and so they (almost definitely) appear where the wielder expects them to. Learning how to swordfight without arms would be, well, nearly impossible--but if they managed, they could certainly retrain their brain to expect the Blade to appear elsewhere (their feet, with toes gripping the hilt; perhaps their mouth; I don't know.) If they have the Plate as well, and work at it, then it seems likely to be able to have the Blade appear in the Plate hand regardless. It seems pretty clear that there's a Cognitive connection to a 'whole body' for people who were born that way--see phantom limb syndrome from those that have lost said limb. So, if your arm gets lopped off, but you're wearing a suit of power armor Plate that has an arm and hand even though you're missing one, then yeah--the Blade you materialize out of nowhere is going straight into that gauntlet. And then hanging uselessly, because you still can't move the arm because you don't have one.

Ahh, but death is, at times, a necessity. A good story will have conflict and risk; death is, generally, the 'ultimate' risk. Showing the audience that the cast of characters is not immune to death (or, rather, that they are susceptible to whatever the risk is) helps to build attachment and connection with the main characters. A classic scenario of how this works is in the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation. Tasha Yarrrr (fewer 'r's, because she's not a pirate, but I don't care) was a main character, and died very early on. This let everyone know/see that the risk of death was very real, for all the characters--and so, when those characters later faced death, the audience felt that they may actually die. I guess what I'm saying is that if we didn't know Brandon would kill off characters, we probably wouldn't love them as much. So it's good that he does--even though we desperately want him to leave our favorites alone. Like Shallan. Seriously--I don't want to be the guy that cries over the death of a fictional character (again). So let her live. 'kay?

I recently asked my brain this very question, and got the following answer:

Every time I see this post (which is now twice, so, we're talking HUUUUGE numbers here) I think to myself, "Is white sand cannon <what>?!" Like, "Is White Sand cannon ready to fire yet?! The Void Bringers are advancing, and we need something to stop them!!" Because cannon is the spelling of a weapon that makes a big boom and kills people. Canon is what people on forums like these usually tend to mean, instead. My absolute favorite, though, is when people talk about head-cannon (pretending a story is a certain way even if there isn't textual evidence from the author to truly support it). It makes me think of a person's head turning into a cannon, then firing away at a floating cartoon-image of the story and blasting it to pieces, and shreds of it falling off until the floating cartoon-image of the story matches what they want it to be. (Not meaning to be pedantic, even though I've succeeded at just that. It always brings me a little bit of joy when I see the probably-wrong-spelling because my brain is weird. Have a cookie!)

I once wasn't on fire. But now i am. I have failed the Church of the Stick. Also, can someone get me a bucket of water?

You seem to be missing one very key, critical point: the Shardblades are the living corpses of spren. The Stormfather voices great displeasure with the Blade that Dalinar has. Seeking only to use them in order to save humanity is possibly the greatest way possible to alienate all other spren. "Hey, Syl! Remember your second-cousin-twice-removed who died in the Recreance? Well, we found her Blade-form, and decided that Fred over there is going to use her. You get no say in the matter. Your voice doesn't matter. We're in this to save humanity, so whatever you feel is clearly not applicable. Be sure to tell all your friends!"

There's a WoB or WoP out there somewhere that says [paraphrasing] "Astronomers would say that Roshar wouldn't be capable of supporting life." It was in relation to a question about how far it is from its sun, or perhaps how old its sun is, or what color it was. Since he didn't bother to say why that I can recall (a quick search didn't turn anything up, and I'm too lazy to do more right now), it's kinda easy to think that it may be due to holding a Venus-like position in the system.

WoK Szeth was a fascinating villain that I wanted to know more about, and looked forward to his scenes. WoR Szeth was a foolish, idiotic coward that acted in irrational ways, and I just have a hard time continuing to care about a character like that (especially one who has completely subsumed their own free will to do the bidding of another just because). I do, however, hold some hope that both Szeth and Kaladin will be more likable/relatable/readable in Stones Unhallowed.

Eliot is definitely a Thug (Misting that can burn only pewter.) Nate is a Rioter (not quite exact, as he is both Rioter and Soother, but has none of the other Metal-burning powers.)

Vasher is definitely, 100% the same person as Zahel. Link is here. Zahel can see Honorspren because Vasher is a returned, who has the Fifth Heightening--which lets them see the Investiture in other people. All spren are bits of a Shard; they are Splinters. They are Investiture that has become conscious and sentient. Vasher was always very good with a sword. The difference between "very good" and "the best ever, who then had hundreds of years of practice honing their craft" is a bit much. Just remember that Vasher kept from dying immediately in his duel with (I forget his name), and actually lasted quite some time. He didn't manage that by being terrible with the sword, but by being very good--just not the best.

Look, if I had heard rumor that there was someone capable of wielding the forces that govern how the universe works (ie, Surges), I'd be surprised as hell to learn that person was a child. We know that Hoid probably has at least the Fifth Heightening from Breath, which means he can sense Investiture in other people--like Shallan and Pattern. There's also a WoB out there that it's possible to use one magic-system to detect people from others, although it may not be exact/perfect/easy (and that may be because a Seeker is only trained to look for specific types/kinds of pulses, if that, while they are burning Bronze, and so they may not think to notice what someone holding Stormlight would 'feel' like.) Hoid's surprise at their second meeting is clearly because he was not expecting to be glomped by Shallan. Alternative theory is that Hoid tends to know what needs to be done, and be in place to be able to do it (that's actually not the theory-part.) But, for whatever reason, he hasn't actually seen or noticed Shallan at all except for when they cross paths in person; no fore-warning, when he's used to substantial foresight, can have that kind of reaction. Or maybe it's because her Lightweaving is so damned similar to what he's used to from Yolen. I still think it's the first one, though, of shock at how bloody young she was.

My current theory on how Nightblood got from Nalthis to Roshar is magic. Of the Worldhopping kind.

Not in this head, it isn't! Always pronounced it like "ow" with an r sound in front

It's hard to walk down the street when you are injured and/or crazy. I imagine that you might make a few wrong turns when navigating between planets while in a similar condition.

Brandon only kills his main characters off if it makes the story better, and their story arc is complete. I imagine this will happen for a LOT of characters in book five. If Kaladin were to die at the beginning of book three (ie, based on how i feel about him right now), then i would care far less than any of the others. On the other hand, I may need a full day to recover after Shallan dies (okay, at LEAST a day)

@Lirins Hand, Some time ago, there was a rather lengthy forum discussion regarding whether the death of Taln was an accident, or murder. I cannot remember what it was titled, or who started it, sadly, tho. But you may want to doa more lengthy search, add there was a lot of discussion you may find interesting. Personally, i think it likely the Heralds are wouldn't hold back from fighting with all they have; during the desolation itself is presumably the only time they have that is free from torture. There is no reason to suggest that, were they to LOSE, they would avoid said torture. I would think it more likely they would be afraid that they would be immortal, and undergoing the pain and torment for all eternity and no hope of an end or break.