Zea mays

To me it sounds more like "damning with faint praise". Wit mentions the above as if they were Elhokar's only good points. He says nothing about Elhokar being a wise ruler or a good person. Mebbe that's just Wit being Wit.

Thanks Max. :-) The thing is, if not Lirin, who is his biological father ?(not to mention mother-side question) Random dark-eyed soldier #17? King Gavilar? Amaram? Zahel? The herald Kelek? Someone we haven't met yet? I haven't the foggiest idea.

I always thought Adolin was recovering from the duel, having his shardplate removed, etc. Dalinar could have just said "I will deal with this" and given him a stern look, and that would be that. Obviously, later he was not entirely satisfied with how his father dealt with things. Think about something else Elhokar says to Kaladin in the barracks "Everyone loves you". Whom does he mean by "everyone"? The bridgemen? No, they don't matter to Elohkar. He's talking about members of his own family. Dalinar still treats Elohkar as a child who needs guidance, but he respects and listens to this younger dark-eyed (ex-)slave. Ouch! Renarin went out of his way to be placed within his squad, and Adolin even threw himself in jail for him. It's little wonder Ellie' is feeling a bit jealous and insecure these days. Just during typing this it occurred to me that there might be one other person who could have secretly influenced Elhokar's thinking: Wit could have told him a story...

My speculatory speculation - Lirin is not Kaladin's biological father. On his first appearance in WoK, Lirinis described as a short man. On his pretty much every appearance in either book, Kal is described as extremely tall. Sure, hight disparity between fathers and sons can happen, but such an extreme difference is not likely. Also, Tien is not physically similar to Kaladin. - A newer idea to me: Geranid discovered that writing down the size of a spren fixes it at that size. Would writing about more abstract properties of spren influence them similarly? Did Nohadon write his "Way of Kings" to define honor for and in spren?

What's interesting is that later in the book, when Elhokar comes to speak to Kaladin he says something like "even the Assassin in white, when he finally came, only went after Dalinar, not me" (not exact quote). I wonder if he came to that conclusion on his own, or maybe... Maybe Adolin had a private conversation with him before he placed himself in jail. We never see those two together afterwards, and suddenly the king seems humbler and less self assured. Just idle speculation on my part.

I am having a hard time understanding that one. Clearly I was never meant to be a Dustbringer. In the prologue to WoR, Jasnah meets Ivory just after she publicly proclaims her disbelief in Vorinism. The readers know that a lot of that religion is based on ancient misinformation. I'm thinking Elsecallers might have a vow of digging out and bringing hidden truths to light

I thought he took the Oathgate back to the shattered plains and then flew fell westwards towards Hearthstone from there. Ah, here's the quote from WeiryWriter's transcription :

But he did appear to know that the oathgate leads there... My guess would be he learned all about Urithiru when he got his honor blade. If the Shin kept those, and knew what they were, they probably kept some secret knowledge of the lost radiants too. Come th think of it, anyone else see the connection between the Shin, with their natural baldness and insistence that wariors are to be slaves, and the Vorin ardents, who shave their heads and exist in a state of servitude?

That's too bad. I like to imagine that a drunk windrunner could get in trouble with gravity in all kind of exciting directions.

Dang nabbit, trying tp quote on the phone I accidentally downvoted Vash. Could some kind sharder fix that? And here I thought she was the Lopen's aunt.

This. I have wondered before this about hybridization between Roshar 'humans' and parshendi, and the enormous difference in physiology seem like a giant barrier to that. My surmise is that as far back as the last desolation there could have been some sort of parshendi 'human' form. What king of spern would cause that? What if... what if a parshendi bonded with a spren that already had a nahel connection to a radiant? Can that happen? [i do not believe humans can interbreed with parshmen slaves - if they could, there would be a lot of hybrid persons walking around and everyone would know about it. The parshendi have been isolated from the rest of the planet's population until Dalinar came across that hunting party in the unclamed hill some seven years ago. Ergo, whatever hybridization happened, it happened very very long ago. Long enough to be forgotten]

Anat was an ancient mid-eastern goddess. Obligatory wikipedia link

There might still be something up with aluminum. Hrm, maybe it doesn't affect the spren, but it inhibits stormlight uptake? We will have to see what effect (if any) losing his mother's necklace will have on Adolin.

I'm one of the two people that voted for Kaladin. He's always been my favorite character (in the cosmere) and I'm looking forward to his homecoming. That reading made me really want to know what would happen next (after Mr. Sanderson stopped), o damnation with the wait for the next book. I do love Jasnah as well, and her segment was intriguing too, of course, and contained some tantalising world-building tidbits. But I'm not worried about what might happen to her next, because A. We already know how that situation worked out and B. I can't imagine Jasnah doing something incredibly stupid (more than I can say for my beloved Kal ).

In Jasnah'a prologue chapter to WoR she hires an assassin to watch over the queen. An assassin that secretly has her own shardblade. I'd say she's a suspect for the blade-switch.

Mine is merely a corny pun. *slinks away in shame*

Hello Hello! Giving you an upvote for coming back and clarifying. To be fair, even Kaladin himself describes his decision to not take the shards as "the stupidest decision anyone ever made" (or words to that effect). His decision is emotionally motivated, not based on cold rational thinking. Heck, it's been a traumatic day... Also, he was very naive at that point and expected Amaram to really uphold the standards the man pretended to.

I agree about the connection to soulcasting because of the name: ghost blood. Whats that? Ghosts don't have any vital liquids as a rule. Ghost blood is... Blood from nowhere? Like the blood that just appeared when a certain clueless proto-radiant transfigured a goblet. I think that to save herself Shalan will have to actually take over the ghostbloods. No real evidence, just the feel I get for her story's trajectory.

Are metals rare on Roshar? I got the impression anyone who has a soulcaster can make as much metal as they like (see Rysn's interlude in WoK). Now, take a mistborn and give them a soulcaster/transformation sure powers...

Ol' Nohadon was the a windrunner and had an honor spren. An honor spren called Sylphrena.

As far as I remember, the bridgemen just started calling him that after he survived the highstorm. They didn't necessarily know he'd been named that before. It's just a name that sticks to him.

Your way of thinking is so much more noble and benevolent than mine.

So, I'm re-listening to WOK st work, and near the end of hour 6 in book 6, there's a sweet Kholin family moment, everyone's chilling before the high-storm and Navani is showing off her new pain-killer fabrial. " I am particularly proud of this little device, as I had a hand in its construction... ...well it's just an early model, I was working backwards from one of those deadful creations of Longshadows..." The implication here is that this Longshadow, whoever he was, invented a pain inducing fabrial . And several other magical devices of similar charm. Sweet, motherly Navani is reverse-engeneering torture devices invented by a mysterious Rosharan equivalent of an evil mad scientist. I get the distinct feeling we will be learning more about this in future books, meanwile, speculation is always more fun than working anyone has any notion who this Longshadow might have been? Maybe the head of the 'inquisition' at the time of the hierocracy?

My bet is on 3.Eshonai 4.Amaram 5.Elhokar/Navani Eshonai - for obvious reason, so we discover more about the reason for the assassination attempt, and how the Parshendi came to aquire Szeth's services (that would be appropriate for his book). Amaram, because in Jasnah's POV we learn that Gavilar gave him a secret errand to the Parshendi on that fateful night. We somehow need to find out what that was. Elhokar/Navani - welp, just wishful thinking on my part, because I really do not want a Gavilar POV chaper. I prefer for him to remain mysterious, set apart from all the other characters, the ultimate mover of things (despite a slight case of being dead).

Thank you Maxal! I hope that by "sacrifice a chicken" you mean cook it to deliciousness with red wine and garlic and stuff because that is totally a thing you should do. Every day. I agree it would feel wrong for the king to become a radiant. I disagree about Kal keeping his involvement completely hidden from Dalinar. Two things I think he should definitely mention are: A) Dalnan is a spy. She probably leaked the record of the visions. Graves specifically mentioned a "we" that have been trying separate Kal from Dalinar, on the specific night szeth dropped by. A group of people involved with the Assassin in white hiding right there in the warcamps. Those are things Dalinar needs to know.