Sun

The Aimians have near mythical status and are basically extinct at this point. There is no evidence to support this at all, but maybe their extinction is related to being hunted down for their hearts? With the scouring of Aimia, we know the creatures of this land were "scoured" for gemhearts.

Gonna make this theory even more crackpot from here...

What if the Aimians are similar to spellcasters? Gemhearts can hold stormlight, and their physiology allows them to create tattoos on their bodies. We know a fabrial-gem's power can be determined by the, invisible, pattern of Stormlight that gets filtered through the gemstone. Perhaps the tattoos they create could be imbued with their natural stores of stormlight, which would allow them to attract and ask spren to perform a task. And maybe it's just me, but fabrials always felt wrong to me in the way they cage spren. Furthermore, the one Aimian we know, Axies the Collector, is basically obssesed with spren, which could be related to his race's affinity for spren.  So, yeah...there is no evidence for this theory, but it was just a random thought I had today.

I guess it's safe to assume Dalinar is on Nalan's naughty list.

Definitely the second variant. I personally don't think the language used was ambiguous. It would be interesting though. The possibilities...

one of them is french and probably likes toast.

 

 

finding a mine in your potato field is kinda like...

Being abducted by an extraterrestrial race of space cows from the 18th shard world searching to unlock the secrets of the fourth dimension.

Kissing a chull is like tasting nutella for the first time.

The more I think on it, the more I feel Kaladin will die in either book 4 or book 5. There isn't that much character development he has left imo and that is a dangerous place to be for a character. Because of this, he is the perfect character to kill off.  BS is an excellent writer and we know he isn't afraid of killing the main protagonist in a series. Sanderson has been lax so far regarding Stormlight Archive main/secondary character deaths - I sense a strong highstorm coming. Kaladin's death would be really unexpected, and it's also needed to forego character stagnation or regression.

Desolations are supposed to be huge disasters that put humanity on the brink of extinction. Having said this, this one is supposed to be worse given Odium's increased influence. I fully expect more than half the cast to be dead by the end of the series.

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Really early to say but my character death predictions:

Kaladin, Teft, Taln, Axies, Renarin, Dalinar, Szeth, Amaran, Shallan's brothers, more of Kaladin's bridgecrew

Those who will survive to the end:

Jasnah (future worldhopper?), Lift, Navanni, Shallan, Adolin, Rock, Hoid (ofc)

Kaladin is a very likable hero when he isn't whining about not protecting someone - albeit, he does have seasonal effective disorder per WoB so some of this is beyond his control. He's noble and real despite being unrelatable. Cannot stress the real part enough. Normally, the goody-two-shoes-I-do-no-wrong characters come off as superficial and unrealistic. I can't really define what makes him so real but he is. Also, he still tries to be a good person despite going through the shitter.

Besides that, it has become a trend as of late to make the main protagonist into somewhat of a pragmatic opportunist (especially in YA literature). I like that he wants to be a good person and tries to stick to his values.

Color is important in regards to gems. Impure color results in a "bad alloy" that you could get in Mistborn. So garnets that are not reddish should not be able to hold Stormlight. I think there still might be an error.

Do you have the source quote for this? I think you might be right. Otherwise, maybe the not-red garnet varieties just don't hold stormlight as well?

Interesting. Thanks! This puts the hardcover color at odds with the in-world descriptions, and also the Surgebinding chart. Sounds like a question to ask Brandon if anything. Or perhaps an error? I'll put it as a possible error in the thread.

Q: Are the rest of the books in the Stormlight Archive going to be different colors?

A: They are, and you can actually match the color to the order of the Knights Radiant. That's the Windrunners[WoK], that's the symbol of the Windrunners, that's the color. That's the Lightweavers[WoR], and that's the symbol of the Lightweavers, which is the same, and the color.

Garnets do virtually come in all colors; however, I believe red is the most common color representation assigned to garnets. The fact Shallan's book cover is red and the various diagrams released portray the Lightweaver's glyphs as red lead me to believe Shallan is getting red eyes!

For example, I can recall blue garnets are exceedingly rare and quite expensive. Garnets come in nearly all colors. It's just that red is most often associated with garnets.

Shallan / Lightweaver's colour is indeed garnet, confirmed in-world. See beginning of chapter 71:

 

 

 

I do wonder if Shallan's eyes should be garnet? Kaladin's change doesn't seem to be temporary due to excessive Stormlight use or something since Dalinar doesn't comment on his eyes reverting. Is being lighteyed have anything to do with it or is she a special case?

 

Random thought: maybe Shallan's eyes changed to garnet as a child and this is what her mother noticed (I've wondered if maybe Shallan's mother thought Shallan was becoming a Voidbringer). But if so, nobody else has noticed and commented on it which is odd. Is it possible that Shallan has been sub-consciously keeping her eye colour the same? Or is it that lighteyed people's eyes only change when they hit the highest level as a Radiant? Or not at all?

I always thought Shallan's eyes haven't changed yet because she hasn't said enough truths. However, I'm inclined to believe your version of events because it fits together so nicely.

The idea all members within a order share the same uniform eye color, and the mechanics of the eye color change actually affecting the sDNA, not a backlight effect, doesn't seem to fit with the information provided so far. Given the gem color-eye color association and the eye color change being inhertiable, it's strange there isn't more deviation in the eye color spectrum. Red, silver,and orange eye colors being absent is certainly mysterious unless it is simply the retcon product of not wanting to have red eyed characters. However, maybe the missing eye colors are common in other areas not yet introduced? It's possible each order could be connected with a specific area of Roshar: most of Iri's population has golden eyes. Perhaps, the people of Iri are the descendents of the stonewards? Additionally, the common distribution of blue eyes could be explained through the Windrunner's many squires.

Shallan is aware of the concept of genocide: maybe red-eyed individuals were wiped out in mass due to the association red eyes have with voidbringers.

Windrunner=Sapphire=Kaladin's blue eye color.

Lightweaver=Garnet=Shallan getting creepy red eyes?!?!

Q:  Will a Surgebinder's eye color change when they Surgebind or have a Blade. Is the color of their eyes corresponding to their Order? So Windrunners would do blue.

A:  Yes.

Q:  So each Order does a different eye color?

A:  Each Order does indeed have an eye color representation.

 

Q:  You very clearly make rules for the wine in this world, like the different colors and different alcohol content.  I was wondering what the inspiration for that is, and also what some of them are actually made from, because it doesn't seem like grapes.

A:  It's not grapes, it's a local fruit.  So we would not probably call it wine, we would probably call it something else.  And it's based on my desire to do funky things with world building in every way I can. [The color is a cultural thing.]

Somewhat tangential to the current debate, but I wanted to bring up a specific part of the chasm scene since DeployParachute quoted it above and no one's brought up a certain aspect of it...

 

As readers, we know that Kaladin is completely wrong here.  He's buying into Shallan's facade, the one we've seen her put up over and over throughout the book - not the false confidence that they'll survive the chasm, as has previously been mentioned, but the way she resolutely and internally refuses to acknowledge and work through her past.  Short of Pattern forcing her to confront it she barely even acknowledges some of the most traumatic parts of her life, and even then she's never gone through a healing process, moving as she did straight from her mother's death to trying to hold the rest of her family together (and her mother's death was caused by her Radiant abilities, not the cause of them, so there must have been something even earlier in her life that 'broke' her initially).

 

Shallan is not a psychologically healthy person, nor is she guaranteed to be a stable one, for all she pretends to be both, and Kaladin's awe of her is based on the same pretense that keeps her from progressing by dealing with her past.  That's not healthy for either of them.

Going to have to disagree with you here. I cannot recall the exact passages, but there were 2 occassions where Pattern declares she "cracked" where others would have completely broken. She is fractured and damaged but not broken in the way she believes. At least, that's how I interpreted it.

I find it unfair both Shallan and Kaladin get their own separate thread, yet the increasingly more interesting Adolin hasn't one. I am fully aware this question maybe difficult to answer because his character will be undergoing a major shift and experience heavy character development in the upcoming books. However, it's still fun speculating.

I have this strange, unsubstantiated feeling that Shallan and Adolin will begin to grow a part emotionally and possibly physically in Book 3 (Being exiled for the murder of Sadeas), but their relationship will eventually come around in a full circle, ending up together in later books. Adolin will experience a lot of character growth in the next book, and they will begin to see each other in a new light.

What order would win a KR civil war? Which order is the most powerful and influential on their own given the presented abilities and information so far?