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Okay, obviously, this will be a spoiler-filled topic because my primary concern here is if anyone has any clue as to who he could be. That is, does anyone have any speculation about a character from another book who could be him? It seems likely that he's from Hoid's planet, so maybe he hasn't shown up elsewhere, but I feel like he should have.

Yeah, you're right. Despite her rough edges, Lift's sense of morality is in line with her spren's. But that's kinda the point, ai think. Spren only bond with those amenable to their sense of right and wrong.

Isn't that almost exactly what Lift is?

I think that the chasmfiends just tend to pupate closer to the war camps. That is, after all, where the Listeners used to live (per the first Eshonai interlude in WoR). Otherwise, yeah, the whole war makes no sense.

You know, I've kinda been leaning towards Ming-Na Wen for Navani, but I would like it if they used unknowns in a hypothetical Stormlight Archive series. Except for Sebarial. He needs to be played by Ray Stevenson.

He's not from Roshar, though. He's definitely the broken one, but I don't think he's one of the "three of sixteen." And evidence suggests that the Bondsmith's bond the spren of Shards. Odium would definitely not be one of those.

I haven't seen any discussion of this, the epigraph from chapter 11 of The Way of Kings--not that I doubt it's here somewhere--and it really intrigues me. Cultivation and Honor are two of the three mentioned, but who is the third?

If there is an Experience Shard, I want there to be an Innocence Shard, too.

...that the return of Radiants will bring a Desolation? While we do not yet know enough of how the Desolations work to make very educated guesses, it seems pretty clear that the Radiants return with the Desolations as a reaction against them. I won't rule out the rise of Surgebinding drawing the Desolation, but it just seems so unlikely. Nale has to know that the Desolation is coming and that slaughtering the only people equipped to stand against it is doing nothing to help. So what is he up to? Is it possible that he wants to make sure that Odium wins this time? Not because he is on Odium's side but because he is tired of it all. They abandoned the Oathpact to get away from the cycle of Desolation, torment, then rebirth into another Desolation, and yet another Desolation approaches.

I've been thinking along those lines, based on the Ars Arcanum in the Alloy of Law. The author says something about the potential for using Hemalurgy effectively on Sel. If you couldn't stamp a spike, could you forge yourself an Inquisitor identity? As for the question at hand, I would go with a Radiant/Mistborn combination. I'm not sure which order of Radiant I would choose, though. I need a better idea of what the other orders can do. Steelpushing and Ironpulling approximate flight just about as well as controlling Gravitation, so that seems redundant. Mistborn powers are already great for fighting, so it wouldn't need to be one of the more martial orders.

Yeah, that's what I think, too. At first, I was thinking of Dominion in terms of control and governance, but then I realized that it was much more likely that Dominion's influence is what restricts the various magic systems to their discreet areas of power--their dominions.

I think Hoid acquires his powers naturally. He already had Lightweaving, he scored a bead of lerasium on Scadrial, and he probably bought Breath on Nalthis (or someone just gave it to him). The feruchemy is a real mystery, but if he was on Scadrial ages before Mistborn, maybe Preservation and Ruin just gave it to him. He seems to have liked Ati. Evil god or no, maybe Ruin was like, "Yo, Leras! Let's hook my homeboy Hoid up with some metalminds." Yes, that's how Ruin used to talk. Speaking of which, where are his metalminds? I bet they're implanted in him. I really suspect he did that with the lerasium. I know he seems to be using allomancy in WoR, but Sanderson has strongly implied that he didn't burn his bead and been evasive about what a lerasium metalmind would do.

I may be wrong. I had a vague memory, probably from the Warbreaker scene, of him doing something with a white powder that turned black as it fell to the ground.

I may be remembering Hoid's Lightweaving wrong, but don't the powders he uses change color, as if he's spent the fuel in them? If so, I think you can figure out what I'm implying. EDIT: If I'm straying too close to discussing unpublished works, I certainly understand if this reply must be deleted.

I think all of the magic systems existed in a way on Yolen, but they were different. We already know that Hoid's Lightweaving is different from Rosharan version. I suspect that some forms of magic combined elements from the various magic systems. Alas, providing support would require discussing White Sand, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Maybe the other Radiants didn't leave their dead spren behind in the form of Shardblades. I don't think a blade just happens to be the natural state of dead spren. In fact, I bet the reason the Shardblades are all locked in an endless cycle of agony is because their bonds were broken when they were so fully in the Physical realm like that. So I bet the 1,000+ Shardblades The Only Joe mentioned were never around to begin with. As for the missing 200, my money is on about half of them floating about like RShara said and the other half in someone's stockpile. I'm fine with them all being in Shinovar, but I think it would be cool if some faction came out of left field as a major threat because they happened to have the largest single collection of Shardblades in the world. When you think about it, Shinovar doesn't necessarily make sense as the location of the horde. The breaking of the Oathpact and the Recreance are unrelated, and I would think that the Shin having the Honorblades is directly related to the breaking of the Oathpact. I don't really see how, "Okay, now let's gather up all these Shardblades," follows from an imperative to safeguard the Honorblades. I can think of a million ways that they could hypothetically get there, but I don't see it as necessary.

I don't think it's ever said that it's a necessity. I think people are getting that idea from when Kaladin says something to Syl about being unable to fulfill his role as a Radiant because he's just a broken a man, and she says that's all any of them ever were. I think she was commenting on the human condition, not asserting that brokenness is a prerequisite to being a KR.

Don't underestimate Edgedancers. They can increase friction too, which could be a tremendous advantage in a fight. They don't need to get a hand around something to wrest it from their enemies hands; they just need to lay a finger on it to get a good grip. A really big Edgedancer could just barely get his hands on an enemy and throw them around. Plus, while we only see Lift manipulating friction between herself and surfaces she is touching, it may be that Edgedancers can learn alter friction at a distance. An enemy with sure footing could suddenly find the ground as slippery as ice.

I don't think it's a problem to give out names from White Sand; we're just not to discuss the plot. Khrissallah's name gets thrown around all the time because Sanderson himself said she is the most knowledgable person about the Cosmere in the universe. So I'm just gonna say it. He's Baon. If you haven't read White Sands, that will mean nothing at all to you. I don't think his identity is supposed to be a secret.

Oh, weird. I wonder where I got that idea from.

Huh. That is interesting. I bet they were created pre-Shattering.

Is everyone remembering that Kelsier was 25 when he died? It seems like many of the casting suggestions are skewing towards an actor who is much too old for the part. I don't particularly like the actor, but someone like Alex Pettyfer would be more appropriate than a lot of these suggestions. I saw Danny Pudi on the list for Spook, but I bet he'd make a good Sazed, even if he's a bit young for the part. He's actually 35, so a little makeup might help make him look age-appropriate. And, yes, I know I'm being a little ridiculous by complaining that everyone suggested for Kelsier is too old, only to immediately nominate someone for Sazed who is too young, but...

I don't think the Windrunners are too over the top, but I was thinking that they are a little overpowered in relationship to the other orders that we've seen. Lightweavers, for example, seem a little wimpy in comparison, based on Shallan's example. Then I realized that I was looking at it all wrong. Shallan hardly has discovered her powers. She can barely Soulcast, and she's been teaching herself Lightweaving. She's using it almost exclusively as a means to disguise herself. Imagine an experienced Lightweaver charging into battle from the midst of a massive, confounding illusion, Soulcasting dozens of enemies into dust. Elsecallers might fight similarly, slipping in and out of Shadesmar instead of illusions. Once we have a bunch of full-fledged Radiants running around, the Windrunners will probably stop looking like the supermen of the bunch.

I think you're right: Adolin probably will die. It makes the most sense as a way to resolve the impending Adolin/Shallan/Kaladin love triangle. Having Adolin and Kaladin be at odds again after having overcome their mutual dislike seems a clumsy way to tell the story. I think Kaladin will suppress his feelings out of respect for Adolin. After he dies, maybe we'll see something happen there. Then again, I was one of the people yelling, "Wax should get together with Marasi!" after reading Alloy of Law, only to be shot down by WoB that they're not right for each other. Maybe this is a similar thing, but it seems to me that the Adolin/Shallan match is the less workable one in this story.

Oh! I was reading "draw" as a synonym for "attract" and was starting to question whether you had read Words of Radiance. Now I feel dumb.