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That's what I've been thinking, too--that it could be more than just cremlings.

@maxal I just realized why exactly I am vexed by your stance on Adolin and feel so bad about how disappointed you are in his arc: I don't really care that much about any individual character. Who cares if Brandon has determined that Kaladin or Dalinar or Renarin or Lift is the most important character? Who cares if anyone, personally, hates one or all of those characters? Stormlight is a vast tapestry of hundreds of characters, and the ultimate significance of even the most notable one is hardly relevant to the overall plan, especially if one looks at things in the context of the overarching Cosmere narrative. By the time the final Mistborn series is released (probably 40 years from now, and I hope that we're all lucky enough to live that long, and Brandon is too), all of the Stormlight characters will probably be irrelevant. The story itself is what has me hooked. If I happen to really like a character more than the author himself seems to, well, they were always going to be dead (or turned into an immortal being much different from the original character) long before we got to the end, anyway. So who cares? The plot itself is what has me hooked, and I don't really care which characters advance it, so long as it remains an incredibly enjoyable read. A part of me just can't understand why anyone would get so upset over the arc of one character, when they couldn't possibly be all that important, no matter what. Every single Stormlight book could be mostly about Adolin, and it still wouldn't be that big of a deal for the Cosmere as a whole. I think that I am simply incredulous: how can anyone (no just you, so please don't be offended) care so much about one man, when so much more is going on?

I agree that Nightblood is probably the cause. I also think that it is very possible that Lift is the only one who can see his afterimages, but any explanation that isn't, "I dunno, man--Nightblood is crazy!" is probably missing the mark. I won't be shocked if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that I'm right.

Lift heard a scream, but it wasn't necessarily a scream of pain. It was could have been a scream of horror. Those Skybreaker candidates were not prepared to square off against a Dysian Aimian, and they were no doubt thoroughly terrified by his true appearance. As to how they actually died, well, they must have been swarmed by cremlings. Maybe they were suffocated with spidersilk (cremlingsilk?) or poisoned with venom, or just choked by thousand of bugs cramming themselves into their throats. Whatever the case may be, they were not prepared to face the enemy that confronted them, and the result was their immediate defeat. I myself wouldn't be so positive that the Sleepless have been around all along as cremlings. Yes, Arclo is made out of cremlings, but are all Dysian Aimians? The fact that they exist as a singular mind controlling a hive may be the actual essence of what they are. The species of the creatures comprising that hive could be irrelevant. There might be Sleepless comprised of chulls, for all we know. As for the Kandra question, I don't see how they could do it. Despite the incredible shape-changing abilities that the Kandra possess, impersonating a hive creature seems well outside of their abilities. If there is a way for them to do it, it would probably require manipulating various magic systems in ways that won't be explained to us until a good 20 years from now. We could still ask Brandon, but it seems like a wasted question.

@maxal I am so happy that you took it that way (by which I mean, your whole reaction to the novella)! I specifically thought of you when I read it because I thought that the things that you don't like about Lift were directly addressed by the end of the book. She seemed particularly obstinate about some of those things near the beginning, but by the end, she was clearly on the path to growing beyond them. I am now more convinced than ever that she is going to be a great character, not because she was the coolest ever from the very beginning, but because she actually started out being very annoying and wrong about a lot of things but grew beyond that in a satisfying way. Now, I still really liked her a lot in her WoR interlude, but the biggest Lift fan in the world can't deny that she spends as much time as she possibly can annoying almost everyone that she interacts with. That kind of character is necessarily going to rub some readers the wrong way because the humor just won't resonate with them at all, and they'll be left empathizing with the other characters, who are being subjected to unrelenting annoyance. Your observation about the similarities between Wayne's extra ability and Lift's is very interesting. We've been discussing her ability here, so I won't go into too much detail about my take on it in this thread (though I'd love to see your input in that thread, maxal). I don't think it's quite exactly the same as Wayne's, but there definitely is a connection. Feruchemical gold is really close to the Progression Surge. Bendalloy is a little harder to connect to Abrasion, but bendalloy Mistings are called "Sliders," after all. There is a certain connection there. I think you're onto something.

I've only read Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates, but based on the latter book alone, it does kind of sound like it.

Obligatory can't-take-a-joke comment: Shardblades can too cut steel beams!

@RustAndRuin The good thing is that the culture here is very relaxed and good-natured. No one is going to be condescending and mock you for being a n00b. You might realize 6 months later that a question you asked was really dumb, in retrospect, and the reason that it will take you that long to figure it out is that not a single person will be mean to you about it. Everyone was new at some point, and no one here is too full of themselves to answer basic Cosmere questions. So please feel free to ask about stuff you don't know. When I first started posting, I was afraid to admit that I didn't know all that much yet, and I didn't know what people were talking about all the time. For example, WoB ("Word of Brandon," if you didn't know that yet; it's the Sanderson fan community's version of Word of God)--I had no idea what that meant. There were probably times that I came off like a total idiot, trying to argue against something that someone just told me came directly from the author's lips.

It may get a RAFO because he doesn't want us to know too much about Resonances yet (which is not to say that we shouldn't try). I'm still pretty sold on that being the case, though. It might be somewhat different for Lift--indeed, my suspicion about how Resonances work is that they're all the same general ability, but it's a little different for every individual--but the evidence seems pretty compelling to me. Granted, there is only a single line about the historical Edgedancers being very eloquent, but it seems like Lift also has that in her. During her final confrontation with Nalan, her speech patterns change in a very interesting way. In the orphanage she shouts, "Darkness! The one they call Nin, or Nale! Nakku, the Judge! I'm here. It's me! The one you tried--and failed--to kill in Azir!" Then when she forces him to confront the Everstorm and the parshmen becoming Voidbringers she says, "I heard what you said, Darkness! You were trying to prevent the Desolation. Look behind you! Deny what you're seeing!" That is not how Lift usually talks. She hasn't suddenly become a master orator, but she is much more articulate than usual. And that really squares with the Edgedancer vows. Remembering the forgotten and listening to the ignored doesn't really go hand-in-hand with eloquence, necessarily. It does, however, match up pretty precisely with the ability to always speak to someone in their own personal language. There's something special about talking to someone who uses the same words that you do and always puts things in a way that really resonates with you. I'd be really surprised if it turned out that Edgedancers don't all have some version of this ability.

We don't know a ton about Odium's goals and methods yet, but we do know that he is specifically not picking up Shards after he kills their Vessels. He doesn't want other Intents interfering with his hatred. I'm not sure if he could use the Splinters that he creates when he attacks other Shards or not (I don't think there's enough information out there yet to really make an educated guess on how that would work), but I suppose that if it is possible, it may be that his encounter with Ambition is what made him determine that he would not touch the other Shards' power once he killed them because even using little bits of Ambition influenced him too much. I don't know if I believe that, though. I think his stance on remaining Odium alone is related to both Rayse's original personality and the Intent of his Shard. Even early on, I think he would have despised other Shards too much to directly make use of their power.

I'm reviving this thread that I created almost a year ago because I realized that Arcanum Unbounded provided some information that goes right along with what I was thinking. Rereading my original post, it seems that I didn't say anything about it at the time (I may have come up with the idea later, as I was thinking about the idea more), but I got the notion that a good way to approach a Cosmere-themed anthology show would be to follow a couple of worldhoppers, who are often in the background but are there to give some continuity to the series and would be Cosmere-aware enough to provide needed explanations through some well-placed dialogue, every now and then. The high barrier to entry in terms of understanding what is even going on in the wide world of the Cosmere could be gotten over by having the first episode be all about those worldhoppers studying Realmatic Theory and the like in a university or something. Even a year ago, I could reasonably suppose that there must be something like that somewhere in the Cosmere, but AU basically confirms as much with the little tidbits about Silverlight. So my idea for a Cosmere anthology show opening in a classroom, where it wouldn't be odd to have someone explicitly explaining what is going on in this very complicated universe, now has a canonical name for its location--a place that was previously purely hypothetical.

The title might also imply that the end of WoR is going to have major implications for Oathbringer. TWoK and WoR were both in-universe books, but the titles also apply to the plots of the volumes in many ways. Oathbringer is sure to do the same, and one way might be very literal. There is a Shardblade named Oathbringer out there, and Adolin tossed it out a window at the end of the last book. That could be part of the title's meaning--that Oathbringer will be found, and it will kick off major plot developments. That would explain why it looks like Adolin's POVs are being saved for near the end: a lot of things need to be set up before we get a major payoff when we finally get to see things from his perspective.

@king of nowhere Read Edgedancer and let me know how you feel about all that stuff you don't like about Lift afterwards. I won't say more than that, since this isn't the Edgedancer spoiler board. And, just to be clear, I do not mean to imply anything other than that one might feel differently about any character after reading a novella devoted to them, and I'm interested to see if any of these complaints change. If you haven't read it yet, there is nothing in what I said that should be taken to be an implied spoiler.

My favorite threads are usually the ones pertinent to whatever the latest Cosmere release was, anything in Cosmere Theories, and of course, The Stormlight Archive forum, since it's my favorite series. Mistborn is good place to discuss stuff, too, since it looks like a lot of the deeper mysteries of the Cosmere are going to come out in those books (Bands of Mourning and Secret History were a one-two punch of revelations).

I would say that Listeners bonding with really big spren, like the Unmade, might well put them into demigod territory. Honestly, though, I think that anytime the Unmade bond with anything, one might well consider that a demigod. I think that is probably what Nalan was referring to. See, for example, Dalinar's Purelake Highstorm vision. I think that Nalan was talking about something like that (except probably even more extreme, and I think that we can all agree that we have not yet seen what the apogee of a Desolation yields).

Yeah, Wyndle being Ym's spren has to be just about the most unlikely thing in all of the Cosmere (I may be exaggerating slightly, there). I still think Stump and Ym are/were nascent Edgedancers, even if their initial affinity to the Progression Surge makes that suspect, but I definitely don't think that Wyndle tried to be another Radiant's spren, failed, then got sent to bond with Lift.

@maxal Well, I think that the happy medium is just accepting that your favorite character isn't as important you would like, but he is still very important. He isn't #1, but he's also not #937 (and it sure is looking like there's going to be a #937 in The Stormlight Archive, considering how expansive this story is). In fact, if you allow that all of the flashback characters get to share #1 (which isn't entirely accurate, since some seem more important than others, but just go with it for the sake of the argument), then Adolin is probably #2. Remember, Adolin was originally conceived as a character without any kind of important role. TWoK Prime--at least, in the chapters that I've read--shows him to be entirely a supporting character and a fairly uninteresting one, at that. He is only interesting there because we've all read the canonical version of Stormlight and can project the much more engaging personality that we know and love on the inferior version presented there. I think that Adolin surprised Brandon, both in the process of (re)writing the character and in fans' response to him. And Brandon does listen to his fans. @Lightflame must have fallen out of their chair when they read Edgedancer and saw that [Edgedancer spoiler, obviously] It's not all that surprising to me that Brandon doesn't get really excited about a character that he only created to explain to Kaladin how a Shardbearer's life works, but it's equally unsurprising that he has wholeheartedly embraced the expansion of Adolin's role in the narrative. Adolin's impact on the story affects all of the main characters. He helps Kaladin get over his hatred for lighteyes. Maybe not as much as Shallan does, but she wouldn't be able to accomplish that without Adolin to use as an example. His role in Dalinar's life is multifaceted and absolutely vital. His relationship with his brother is a very big deal, and Renarin being viable as a main character in the future is going to depend a lot on what happened between him and Adolin. To Shallan, who expected an unpleasant arranged marriage in her future, he is a dreamboat who she was shallowly attracted to at first, but he ended up being so much more. As for the others, well, Jasnah knows him well, and Szeth and Eshonai have both dueled with him. Lift, Shalash, and Taln have probably not yet met him, but even if he never makes any impression whatsoever in their lives, he still has affected 7 out of 10 flashback characters, usually in profound ways. The bottom line is, if the first chapter of Oathbringer features someone finding out that Adolin killed Sadeas and immediately murdering him in retribution, that won't do a thing to diminish how important Adolin has been to the story thus far. Indeed, I think his name would still be coming up in book 10. But you and I both know that this is extremely unlikely to happen. So maybe he doesn't revive his Blade. Maybe his apparent potential to become a Radiant is a Red Herring. He's still absolutely vital to the story. Surely, there's room in this vast epic for an important character who is not a Radiant. He's certainly charmed us quite thoroughly so far without being one. Don't worry about the obvious lack of pages to tell this story or that story. Did Adolin's 4-on-1 duel feel rushed or improperly developed to you? It didn't to me. The way Kaladin's POVs are written, you'd need 100,000 words to get there, but Adolin isn't Kaladin, and he got there much more economically, as far as word count goes. Plus, as the story progresses and revelations start to pour in, things that would have been dragged out over 200 pages in book 1 will happen in 2 pages. I mean, look at the ending of Edgedancer . That could have been stretched out (if Kaladin was around it would have no doubt taken up half of a thousand-page volume), but it was instead resolved in about a page and a half. Adolin is still a major player, and I bet that we'll find that he has some real quality to deliver in his POVs, even if the quantity isn't there.

Not that that doesn't make sense, but Lift's condition (in relation to her partially inhabiting the Cognitive Realm) is unique, and it seems to me like this ability is probably the Resonance that all Edgedancers share (I don't know if Resonances are uniform within an Order/all people possessing the same two powers, but my current thinking on it is that it varies a bit in expression within the individual but remains mostly consistent). Granted, my evidence for that is highly circumstantial, but it just seems to fit so well. In WoR, it seems like such a clever little joke that the first Edgedancer we see is an uncouth street kid, when the historical Order had such a reputation for eloquence. However, with the evidence in Edgedancer, everything changes. If Lift applied this ability to the highfalutin types that she has so little time for, wouldn't they think she was an exceptionally eloquent young woman? No doubt they would. Of course historians and the like thought the Edgedancers were eloquent and refined. They valued those things, the highborn sources they talked to valued those things, and any encounter they had with an Edgedancer or heard about from an associate would be characterized by the like. Meanwhile, the Edgedancers were probably trading dirty jokes with the stable hands as soon as they were out of earshot.

I'm partial to the idea that each Herald ended up on their respective gas giant when they died and/or a Desolation ended. The tortuure wasn't exactly what Honor intended, but the arrangement somehow helped contain Odium, and that was intended.

I know I've said this before, @maxal, but I think that you're being waaaaaaaay to despondent about Adolin. I think that Adolin is very important. If Kaladin, Dalinar, and Shallan are all 100% important to the story, then Adolin is at least 60%--maybe up to 80 or even 90% (depending on how things go). I think that you're left feeling like he's maybe 10 or 20% important because he isn't up there with the flashback characters, but if you look at his POVs' wordcount in WoR, it's only about 1,000 words behind Dalinar''s POVs. That's like--what? 2 pages? He's a very important character. I think that he will continue to get a lot of words dedicated to him, and I do strongly suspect that he will revive his Shardblade. The foreshadowing is definitely there. As for WoBs on the subject, I don't think anything can be taken from them, one way or the other. All he meant about letting the conversation play out naturally (I assume, anyway, since I've seen him comment on this before) is that he doesn't want to step in and derail conversations every time someone comes up with a theory. By "naturally," he just meant without his intervention. The only thing I can see being implied is that he thinks that it's an interesting idea. Maybe it's interesting because that's what he's planning to do, and it's cool to see how accurate people's predictions are (or aren't). Or maybe it's interesting because it's something that he never thought of and is not going to use, but he doesn't want to ruin fans' enjoyment of discussing it.

They can be anything. A sword is the traditional form, though. I would imagine that it hasn't occurred to your average rigid, law-above-all Skybreaker to try something different.

I think there's no queen. I think there's something like a spren (or just a run-of-the-mill soul). I don't know if Arclo would die even if you killed all of his cremlings. I think he would die--or at least be cut off from the Physical Realm in a way that would be difficult to come back from--but it's possible. I mean, this is all just a guess, of course, but it makes sense to me.

My interpretation seems to be the same as yours, so I may have been somewhat unclear in my argument. Now, to be fair, Nightblood is something of a Franken-spren. He might very well share some characteristics with dead Shardblades, since he's more like a reanimated corpse than a living body (so maybe Brandon said Szeth shouldn't draw Nightblood "for a while" because it will take time to bond with him, just like bonding with dead Shardblades does). Whatever the case may be, I will be very surprised if Szeth doesn't gain powers of some type through his bond to Nightblood.

Well, the Honorblade could create its own gap, just like Hemalurgy does. Just because an Honorblade's stabby end points away from you when you wield it in the Physical Realm, that doesn't mean that it isn't cutting right into your Spiritweb in the Spiritual Realm. Now that I think about it, the fact that Szeth and the Heralds are both so mentally unstable could be related to that: if the difficulties of life fracture your soul, Investiture can soak in and shore up the cracks, but if the Investiture is itself the chisel into your Spiritweb, then you just end up fragmented.

Now, @PeterAhlstrom very clearly told us that the canonical mechanics of reviving someone killed by a Shardblade have not been changed by the revision to the ending of WoR, but let's just say that he never popped in to tell us that. I still don't see any contradiction. A Herald, who is thousands of years old and full of the knowledge of the ages, shows up with a specially made fabrial and revives a man killed by a Shardblade... Compare that to a 13-year-old child (who thinks she's still 10), who doesn't have enough Stormlight to revive her subject, regardless, and just learned how to heal others, anyway. Yes, Wyndle said that it had been too long, but is Wyndle remembering things properly? He's better off than any other newly bonded spren, but he still has some memory loss. And how does the fabrial that Nalan used affect the process? Also, how much time passed between Szeth dying and Nalan healing him (in either version of the story)? And how much time passed between Nalan killing the girl and Lift attempting to heal her? Is there a difference between how much time you have to heal a subject who has wielded an Honorblade for years and how much time you have when your subject is a preteen petty thief? There are more than enough vagaries there to conclude that the story probably works just fine. But also, Peter told us that it does.