The One Who Connects

It's happened before. Well, Calmseer got that moment of recollection and understanding before giving her Breath away, so... Brandon appears to be implying that their purpose will always involve giving up that Divine Breath, but that's a good question to ask him about sometimes. RAFO, I'm afraid. And now we get into speculation. I see this going one of two ways. 1) You'd die among family/friends/coworkers, and they'd probably still talk to you as you when you return. 2) Idris is historically quite anti-awakeners, so tensions could run high. You might even get cast out, which could segue into moving to Hallandren. It isn't that far away, and if your family went with you... I would imagine, but even Lightsong had difficulty doing so. We only know for sure that 3 Returned have done it so far: Vasher, Denth and Yesteel(I think). An Idrian would have a better head start, but suppressing that Divine Breath probably takes more practice than could be done within that one week.

Yes the mentions in tWoK is fulfilled by the "Dustmother" comment. The WoP he's speaking of though, says that Chana has been seen on screen at least once, by at least one character. It's flimsy, and there's nothing concrete, but the speculation exists, because that WoP implies that we've actually met the person who is in actuality Chana. Have said WoP for completeness.

The trend is only getting old because people use songs that are a bad match for the tone of the trailer. I do like that suggestion, even though I was thinking about a few other songs. Depends on what type of tone the trailer ends up going for.

Just takes practice. (And remembering some vague, but clever, search terms ) I'd like to talk to you about First of the Sun.

It's because you are reading them backwards. Look at the dates. "Doesn't mean they don't have their own powers" was March of 2014. "No innate powers" was September of 2014. That said, powers gifted to them by the Shards wouldn't be "innate" per se, even if they were a more permanent modification.

Roshar was specifically "grown" by Adonalsium, so what do you think?

Reread the third WoB in that Post. Around 4,000 years ago is not a possibility. Brandon considered the Recreance as "ancient" history, while also "more recent than late." 700 years is "recent" history (Hierocracy). More recent than late would be close-ish to that, so I limited it at 2,500 rather than 3,000.

"Last time" being the last time it happened in Brandon's books. Last time Shards appointed Champions, they fought one on one. I would rather Brandon subvert our expectations and have it be different this time. It's not just you. It's the truth. Odium has to be put in a situation where he thinks risking a Champion is the safer choice. Odium has the initiative, meaning he moves first and the good guys are forced to react. The good guys have to pull off something unexpected, and put Odium on the defensive. "If you continue to allow this war to be fought on the Empire's terms, you are going to lose." -Saw Gererra Those theories mostly have to do with how Brandon develops characters. He isn't just going to introduce a random new character as Odium's champion at the last second. Brandon loves foreshadowing and complex characters. It's not in his nature to have important characters(like a Champion) be one-dimensional.

Well, the only reason I saw it is because I remembered that Arts and Majesty was purposely written to start that gender role schism, rather than just being the book that the split is attributed to. Gotta be some pretty convincing prose and powerful rhetoric to accomplish that.

The distinction tells us the writer is most likely Vorin. It does not tell us that they are a woman. In fact, that line leans more towards the writer being male, as men writing would challenge the status quo of what makes up the female arts. Arts and Majesty(book that established the male/female arts) was written for a purpose. That said, I can see Navani as a potential candidate for now. I'm still a little partial towards Szeth, not that I can easily explain why. The heretic line almost completely disqualifies Jasnah, as the author implies others falsely call them heretic. Jasnah calls herself a heretic, and is quite proud of it.

Have this. This makes me think that if Elhokar is being sent to Kholinar, and is given the Honorblade, that they will do it via the Oathgate. We know that it should be unlocked on the Local Side already, Jasnah mentioned having tried to unlock it herself at some point in WoK. Elhokar(and a small scouting party) could arrive within seconds. Given the recent riots and current radio-silence, by all estimates Kholinar will be a sight to behold. Might even be worth a short Elhokar PoV chapter to see what's going on down there. Oroden isn't based off a Herald's name, so I imagine that the name literally means that in Alethi. Kaladin says "child of peace" out loud, so that has to be what it means in the eyes of the people around him. If it was an inner thought, then it could have been more for us as readers, but a spoken line is for the people around him. That was your first mistake. Per Argent: That WoB said the circumstances regarding Dustbringer PoV were.. complicated. The implications are there to be implied, but I shall not do so. I will say that he sounds specific enough to have some extensive and convoluted explanation about the details already written out somewhere, and that doesn't seem like something he would just shelve/change his mind about this far in advance unless it just plain would not work.

Didn't say "in a millennia," so it should be plural. My best estimates have always put it around 2,200-2,500 years back, which fits quite well with what the Stormfather says.

I suppose feeling lame is a fair complaint. Although even if the Champions don't fight, everybody else will. That mega-battle could be a contest of stratagem actually, with the champs being military minds, but not fighters. That'd probably meet the "subverted expectations" quota and satisfy your warmongering ways If we wanted to go the realm of proper combat, then Odium should pick Dalinar(one of the most dangerous men on Rosher). If we wanted to go in the realm of magical combat, I don't see much beating Szeth(Kal beat him because he broke Szeth's willpower). The problem with those scenarios is that we can pick an objective "best" candidate and Odium can work to get that best on his side without much resistance since Honor is dead. If Odium can't just possess someone to have a champion, then he won't have the best fighter. It is thus in his favor to manipulate the contest into something more in his champion's wheelhouse. If the "second-best" is someone already under Odium's control, it is now in Honor's favor to pull the fine print on Odium to change the contest into something Honor's champion is good at in case our best fighter dies/turn evil/get injured, etc.. We as a fanbase put too much stock in what we know. The Everstorm didn't happen last time, so it stands to reason that the Champion issue won't be resolved in the same was as last time.

It could also be by/about the event(s)/person that the Sword gained its name from. The KR didn't name their blades because their Spren already had names. That Spren name would not have been handed down with the blade at the Recreance. Logically, Oathbringer gained its name at some point post-Recreance, but probably pre-Hierocracy. That name has to have come from somewhere, and we just happen to have a book of unknown age that shares the name. Coincidence? Personally, I don't think so. Way of Kings was massively important to Dalinar in both books. Words of Radiants was a little less important, but it was still relevant at times. Now we have a book and a Shardblade that share the same name. I think there is gonna be a fair bit of relevance this time.

I know that he doesn't, but without enough proper clues, we essentially would be. That's why our guesses are primarily human. Most all the non-humans we've met(Venli being an exception) don't seem the "enemy champion" type. But large swaths of our human cast has those attributes in spades. This is why I want to wait until after book 4 to judge her chances. If this were Well of Ascension(Book 2 of 3), I would consider those blinking lights to be a good sign. But this is book 2 of 10. Venli has had less than 25 pages of screentime out of 2,000 so far, and already has several blinking lights. To quote Kwaan's Inscription: "It seemed that he fit the signs, true. But, well, how can I explain this? Could it be that he fit them too well?" As Maxal has pointed out in the past, who says it will be a battle of blades? It could be a contest of willpower, or stratagem, or anything else.

That's never occurred to me before, and it really should have. I'll blame part of the Allomantic Table for that one. This right here was one of the reasons why I stopped trying to reason with Resonances.

See, you know that. Does Navani know that? Does Dalinar know that? For the second time this week:

Well, there was this one theory about Dalinar... (that I can't find at the moment(just what did I say in that post?)) They wouldn't be taking the burden from someone else, but taking it to prevent someone else from having it. Making the noble sacrifice and becoming the villain in the scenario so that a person who's actually evil doesn't become a villain. We know that Dalinar needs to unite the world, and he's probably gonna end up having to do some of it by force. Good intentions or no, a general rule of thumb is when you try to unite the world through force, you often unite the rest of the world against you, like what happened in both World Wars here on Earth. Dalinar needs to unite them against Odium, an enemy that they can't see. That means forcing those that don't buy it into line, which I've already stated is a big no-no. So Dalinar could embark on the path of giving them an enemy that they can see, a threat that everyone can rally against(Brandon has said that Blackthorn Dalinar would've been one of the most dangerous figures in the world). He should understands how unity by force breeds rebellion, and if he'd unite them against himself, why not take advantage of the situation? A skilled writer can have a character take the path of "noble goal(like unity) is the only goal that matters" and have them slowly become the villain in pursuit of peace. There's a good example of this in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, where the main character's motivations and goals get largely set in stone early on, but where they would stand on the scales of good/evil & hero/villain shift around as the story progresses. There were times where I'd consider their actions as evil, but everything else about them screams "hero," and there were times where I questioned who was really the "good guy." It was a wonderful change of pace from the "Republic is good, Empire/Separatists/Other are bad" plot that permeates all of Star Wars, and I've been dying to get more stories like that. Dalinar struck me as one of the few characters that could actually be used to convincingly pull something like this off. Another character that somewhat fit the bill was Mistborn Spoilers: We never saw that from his perspective, only as backstory. My idea would be Brandon doing that story as an actual story, with Dalinar following the dark path out of necessity. To quote The Diagram: "Humanity must survive. All other concerns are but dust by comparison." I'll withhold my full opinion on Venli's future until Eshonai's book comes out. I highly doubt that her story was ended at the Battle of Narak, but I'm not sure Champion is where she's heading. The main reason we end up picking human characters is because we know more human characters than non-humans at this point in the story. Unless the champion is a character we haven't even seen yet, the odds are heavily stacked towards a human(assuming we picked a name from a hat, of course)

So he did. Serves me right for not rereading the scene and going off memory.

There was another thread on this somewhere... not that I can remember when that was. Somebody suggested that he didn't detect her. He has breath, which gives him Life Sense like Awakeners have. Shallan had an aluminum necklace on, and Aluminum messes with Investiture, so it was theorized that his shock was in the fact that she snuck up on him even with his life sense. I also like WhiteLeeopard's idea that it could have to do with seeing a live surgebinder, and a child at that.

Currently a fan-made term for the "Stormlight" in the Everstorm, and/or Odium's Stormlight(people have thought that his magic would be fueled by a different "flavor" of Stormlight) Right now, it's just a word that we made up. It might become an accepted term for something if Brandon uses it in the books to describe something in the future.

The Parshendi Gods are "of Odium," and Nightform is mentioned as being around when the Gods weren't, so I can agree with you here about it being a Spren of Cultivation.

I just directly copied my posts from the other thread. Hadn't even thought to update them with that tidbit. Doesn't solve the "seen at least once in the books" yet, but it opens that speculation up to characters that aren't in book 1(which I am somewhat happy about)

From the Coppermind: Eh.. I wouldn't consider it as murder so much as contract killing. His employer did give him a list of names with specific instructions. I wouldn't say it is highly improbable. Hubs(Communications, Economic, etc..) often transcend the distance/border argument. We know that Tashikk has at least one spanreed for each of the Alethi Warcamps, which are even further away. Tashikk is a communications hub for a reason, and it's easier to expand on existing infrastructure than to make a new junction. We know hammers exist to be used against Thunderclasts from one of Dalinar's visions. I don't think Dalinar is similarly inhibited from using Plate, so he could effectively wield a "Shardhammer." Heck, he could even follow in Sadeas' footsteps and learn the way of the Grandbow. Personally, I like the cap being either 3 or 4 powers. If it's 3, then you have 3 Powers and 3 Resonance bonuses, making it an even balance. If it's 4, then you get 4 powers and 6 Resonances, giving you an even 10(for that Rosharan symmetry). Either way, I doubt we'll see an example of this cap in SA(at least not in the front 5), maybe in Mistborn Era 3/4, given the advent of Medallions and the scientific method.

Ask, and you shall receive. Argent: You are actually spot on. That's exactly what she says. Paliah: I found it. Chana: Not a theory so much as a potential hint, there is no other mention of her on the forums that doesn't also refer to WoR. Navani on Jasnah: We have a WoP that Chana is somewhere, but we still have no idea when.