Blightsong

Oops. Posting while busy and lazy: dont do it kids.

Ah, fair enough. I half rembered the WoB and didnt read it carefully before posting. I like where you and @Jondesu are going with that theory, makes a lot of sense.

The below WoB shoots that down a bit. INTERVIEW: Sep 4th, 2014 Salt Lake City Comic-Con 2014(Verbatim) QUESTION I asked a question at the panel, I asked if the person you refuse to say who he is, I was trying to talk about Taln. BRANDON SANDERSON Oh! QUESTION Not Hoid. BRANDON SANDERSON So what about Taln? QUESTION Is there anything you'll tell us about him? BRANDON SANDERSON What do you want to know? Ask me a specific question. QUESTION Is he Rosharan? BRANDON SANDERSON Is he Rosharan? Taln is Rosharan. QUESTION [audio obscured] BRANDON SANDERSON Define Rosharan, how about that? QUESTION Native to Roshar. BRANDON SANDERSON That I have to RAFO. QUESTION Are the Heralds... BRANDON SANDERSON The Heralds are from the same place that Taln is from.

These are the kinds of religious themes I really respect Brandon for exploring, and that it took me years of regular re-reads to make the connection speaks volumes for the depth, care, and skill Brandon puts into writing these novels.

I think it's referencing how Dalinar was doing things he thought the Almighty had directly approved of, when in fact Honor was long dead by the time Dalinar interacted with the recordings. Or not, and Honor was secretly evil

I shared this on The Stormlight subreddit and thought I'd share it here as well. Reddit post. In the WoK, Hoid tells the story of a group of people who committed horrible things under the orders of a king only to discover that that king had been dead for years, and that they were responsible for their horrible actions. The dead king is discovered in the passage below: “Derethil and his men came out of the tower a short time later, carrying a desiccated corpse in fine robes and jewelry. ‘This is your emperor?’ Derethil demanded. ‘We found him in the top room, alone.’ It appeared that the man had been dead for years, but nobody had dared enter his tower. They were too frightened of him." In the final chapter Dalinar finally realizes that the Almighty hadn't been talking in response to him, that he hadn't been following orders but had been misinterpreting the visions. He then learns that the Almighty is dead. The title of this final chapter? In the Top Room.

The recent Oathbringer prologue and it's subsequent discussion got me thinking on a theory I had way back when WoR was released, and I think I have some pretty convincing evidence in its favor now. I think that the Bondsmiths are able to directly and purposefully affect the spiritual realm and the spiritual aspect of individuals. A relevant quote on the Bondsmiths is as follows: "So Melishi retired to his tent, and resolved to destroy the Voidbringers upon the next day, but that night did present a different stratagem, related to the unique abilities of the Bondsmiths; and being hurried, he could make no specific account of his process; it was related to the very nature of the Herald and their divine duties, an attribute the Bondsmiths alone could address." - WoR Chapter 58 Epigraph This Epigraph heavily implies that this Bondsmith created Parshmen out of Listeners, that the method used is specific to Bondsmiths, and that it relates to "the very nature of the Herald and their divine duties" which I strongly suspect is referencing the Spiritual Realm. I think that this power would function similarly to the effects of hemallurgic chimeras, but dependent on the Bondsmith's will rather than knowledge of spiritual bind-points and a physical spiking. If my theory is correct then it makes the below Hoid conversation much more intelligible and slightly prophetic, especially since Brandon has said that everything Hoid says in this conversation is significant: "[Wit] looked directly at [Dalinar]. "Adonalsium." Dalinar frowned more deeply. "What?" “Nothing,” Wit said. He seemed preoccupied, unlike his usual self. “Nonsense. Balderdash. Figgldygrak. Isn’t it odd that gibberish words are often the sounds of other words, cut up and dismembered, then stitched into something like them—yet wholly unlike them at the same time?” Dalinar frowned. “I wonder if you could do that to a man. Pull him apart, emotion by emotion, bit by bit, bloody chunk by bloody chunk. Then combine them back together into something else, like a Dysian Aimian. If you do put a man together like that, Dalinar, be sure to name him Gibberish, after me. Or perhaps Gibletish.” I also think that it explains what Dalinar is seeing in WoR in the below passage: "Dalinar stood in darkness. He turned about, trying to remember how he’d come to this place. In the shadows, he saw furniture. Tables, a rug, drapes from Azir with wild colors. His mother had always been proud of those drapes. My home, he thought. As it was when I was a child. Back before conquest, back before Gavilar . . . Gavilar . . . hadn’t Gavilar died? No, Dalinar could hear his brother laughing in the next room. He was a child. They both were. Dalinar crossed the shadowed room, feeling the fuzzy joy of familiarity. Of things being as they should be. He’d left his wooden swords out. He had a collection, each carved like a Shardblade. He was too old for those now, of course, but he still liked having them. As a collection. He stepped to the balcony doors and pushed them open. Warm light bathed him. A deep, enveloping, piercing warmth. A warmth that soaked down deep through his skin, into his very self. He stared at that light, and was not blinded. The source was distant, but he knew it. Knew it well." Let me know what you guys think and what the implications could be if this theory turns out to be correct.

There is a huge body of evidence suggesting that the Unamde are the Listeners gods, and we know that the Unmade are of Odium, so I doubt that Autonomy is secretly the Parshendi gods.

The above passages don't say that the Listeners taking void based forms are similar to a KR bonding spren, as far as i can tell.

WoB is that it is, last i saw. I wonder what @Belzedar 's source is. I like the theory, im surprised ive never thought of this or seen it mentioned. Nice find @jofwu .

We dont really know anything about what those were, we just have guesses.

Likewise, I'm just relaying what I remember, but I'm pretty sure.

I think Brandon said that we will see Kal's next oath in Oathbringer, but that it would be the last one we would see out of him for awhile.

Yeah, the oaths proposed here just seem kind of redundant. Kaladin has already put himself in situations where he is likely to die to protect others multiple times.

We know that Honor was still alive long after the Final Desolation, and Odium was presumably trapped when the desolations began, so it makes much more sense that Honor did not die while trapping Odium.

The schedule on Brandon's site says that he is doing a reading and Q&A on Sunday

Relevant quote.

Brandon has said that Lift is unique in that ability (probably from the Nightwatcher).

Kolo is a piece of slang that one of the characters in Elantris uses. I agree. Just because an order is of Honor doesn't make it benevolent or just in the average person's philosophy.

I feel you haven't read Edgedancer, read that. It answers you question at least partially.

The magic in Warbreaker has a lot to do with the Cognitive realm, so I suspect that it drains to grey because people think of grey as something that is drained out. If someone perceives a black as black enough to awaken, they can probably awaken with it.

We do know he was alive for the Recreance, and that the Recreance was after the Last Desolation.

I think there are probably parallels to a Shard being trapped on a planet and a Spren being trapped in a gem, but you make a good point.

The quote about the Melishi messing with the nature of the heralds could be a lot less literal than may be thought. For all we know, the author believed that Connection, or the spiritual realm itself was something is "related to the Heralds and their divine duties".

I'm very glad I made this post and was corrected, the stuff I had misinterpreted/heard on the recording is very interesting. The most relevant quote I found is as follows: "The parshmen were like you once. We stopped their ability [to enter the?] transformation somehow by capturing a spren. A very ancient, very important spren.” He looked to her, his eyes alight. “I’ve seen how I can reverse it. A new storm that will bring the Heralds out of hiding. A new war.” There are a couple interpretations of what Gavilar is saying here that I can see. First, he believes an ancient Spren being captured robbed the parshmen of their forms and the rhythms, and that he believes starting a desolation will return them the ability to transform. Second, what he said can be read as him believing that he can reverse the imprisonment of this ancient Spren. The first interpretations leads us to believe that there is knowledge Gavilar has that we do not yet. This is supported by Hoid thinking that Gavilar was relatively Cosmere aware. I think the theory that this ancient Spren is some kind of Adonalsium is pretty plausible under this interpretation. The second interpretation would mean that Gavilar probably believes that Odium is the ancient trapped Spren, and that his imprisonment is what is keeping the Parshmen from holding forms. This is supported by the quote in my first post saying that whatever the Bondsmith that made the Parshmen had to do with the nature of the Heralds and their duties. It also makes sense that the only Listeners that aren't Parshmen are ones that abandoned Odium and his influence. While neither interpretation really jives with my original theory I do think I still made some interesting points, it's just much more of a crackpot now. What do you guys think Gavilar meant?