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Devil's Advocate here (as I dont really have a dog in this fight) but I recently hit that part of my re-read and he didnt Make her do anything. He simply suggested that she learn how to wield her shardblade as a purely practical matter, a path that even Pattern fully supported. Since she was still having trouble dealing with her own history surrounding that sword, but didnt want to admit that to anyone, she created a persona that could handle the idea without risking a breakdown, rather than facing it herself. Her choice of coping mechanism is not his fault.

Ah, gotcha. On that Im with @Kon-Tiki, it would take so many lashings as to likely be impractical. The first weaponized railgun (the General Atomics Blitzer system) was doing accelerations around 60,000 Gs. Due to the Lashings being Rosharan G's rather than Earth Gs, would require something closer to 85,000 Basic Lashings to be applied to the slug simultaneously. They'd probably be better off using Soulcasting to create some kind explosive fuel and just stick to more traditional muzzle-style rounds.

If there's a surge that can mimic/create Lightning (Division perhaps?) it wouldnt be that hard to do it the real way (as in the way our current militaries can pull it off) it just takes a boatload of electricity before the Lorentz force kicks in enough to be useful (which is why they dont scale down the way more purely magnetic coil guns do), and the projectile would still just be a hunk of metal. That being said, Plate isnt actually all that strong on the scale of modern earth projectiles from what I can see, if it can be beaten through with uninvested hammers and oversized bows

Relevant WOB:

Excellent point, Im a little ashamed that I didnt key to the distinction earlier. If the Victim were a Ferring filling Identity to make an unkeyed spike, how do you see this changing their functional behavior? You touched on this in your Medallion creation Write-up, but Im still struggling to wrap my head around that piece. I agree with all of this, and think a lot of it comes down to the nature of Breaths being specifically to grant a faux-spiritweb to objects, being Investiture that was (for lack of a better term) grown by permeating an existing Nalthian's spiritweb, and is why Awakened things tend to manifest with Human traits (grasping things shape themselves as hands, etc). Though that could always be more of a result of the functional image that comes with Awakener's Command. For what it's worth, I tend to see Harmonium as working in a very similar way, in that it takes an Imprint the activating Misting's web and then model's itself into a more temporary Spiritweb that can act as an allomatic emitter independent of the rest of the required web pieces and/or anchoring Physical form. In the case of Lifeless, evidence suggests that they'd retain more that usual of their past self if they receive their own original Breathe back. If it were returned to them by somebody with Blanked Identity (and presumably a more specific Command) do you think you'd be able to get a more functioning sentience? At least to the limits of whatever effect the loss of "soul" that goes Beyond is, anyway. Also, that WOB you posted mentions seems to imply that while it's not simple, there are ways to get Investiture out of Nightblood, and I noticed in OB that Szeth got a temporary sensory increase similar to Heightenings when he drew Nightblood. Any thoughts on what was happening there?

Near as we can tell (and since this is based on explicitly fallible in-world theory, we cant be 100% certain) Anything that exists has a representation in the Spiritual Realm, which is a realm of Pure Investiture, as well as a Cognitive Self to some extent based on sentience (but includes even inanimate objects). ALL Investiture was once part of Adonalsium, and all Investiture was assigned to one of the 16 Shardic Intents when the Shattering of Adonalsium happened. As others have said previously, the Shardic Vessels are not themselves capable of comprehending and controlling the full 1/16th of that particular Infinity (And yes, mathematically there can be lesser and greater Infinities) so they are more limited in what they can see and do with their slice of Creation. Does that answer your question? We are getting into fairly abstract realmic philosophy at this point, so answers will all be relatively vague and likely less than satisfying.

So far as I can tell he's done it differently each time, learning as he goes, though we dont actually know any specifics. In the case of Ambition they had what sounds like a more direct knock-down fight that spanned multiple systems and/or planets. That was at least his third kill, as he got to Dominion&Devotion first.

I like it. The only thing I can contribute is that I suspect the Ashyn diseases are the equivalent of Single-Cell Spren (where lesser spren are animals and the Higher spren are sentient). The bacterial form they had on Ashyn would be them forming a Bond to allow them to manifest in the physical realm similar to Spren on Roshar. Without the Highstorm ecosystem to help larger spren "leak" through there were limits to what one could manifest, so they did it more as a colony of single celled beings that were more vulnerable to mundane human immunity systems. Does that jive with how you are imagining things?

It kind of depends on the definition of Voidspren you are using, it's still a bit fuzzy. Corrupted spren definitely can, if bonded to a radiant, just like normal spren. I dont think any spren can do it without the Nahel Bond. EDIT: to clarify why I say it's still fuzzy. There are the "spren" involved in the Fused, but those where originally Singer souls that got warped by Odium into spren-like beings that can bind Singers during a Highstorm similar to their normal Form-granting bonds (as opposed to the Radiant Nahel Bond). There are also Corrupted Spren that are normal spren who have been changed by the unmade Sja-anat. There may or may not be any spren that are more purely of Odium, as I believe the spren granting the Forms of Power for Regals are also Currupted Spren (but I could be mistaken). Renarin's Glys is a corrupted Spren that has formed a Nahel Bond and can indeed turn into a shardblade.

It was a partial/temporary ascension, best we can tell. It manifested as Unity rather than Honor because whileTanavast took the root Intent behind Honor (ie promotion of Spiritual Bonds) as more of a personal thing between Individuals, Danilar seems to be taking a broader, more Community view of it.

One possibility with Jasnah might be that she was simply labeled some form of "insane" while still young simply for having the audacity to challenge social conventions as strongly as she did, along with generally being misunderstood by most of those around her for being unusually intelligent even at an early age (per Navani). This was disturbingly common in earth societies 100+ years ago. That being said, it makes a bit less sense for Roshar than it would for an earth-based historical fiction given that women all buy Own the intellectual and scholarly pursuits on Roshar, so the more male-pedjudice dominating sort of treatment theories would likely gain less footing. Though Navani doesnt seem the sort to cling to such thing so much that she'd let it harm (or even heavily stifle) her children, so while I could see it happening in Rosahran and/or Alethi High Society, I dont really see it happening to the Kholin's. Re: a possible assault, I'd think Navani would have been present to listen and believe her if it were something as un-superantural as an assault (even by a powerful Lighteyes). If there had been any form of assault, even by somebody close to her, it would be something Id think she'd be able to tell Navani, and Navani would not let social status keep her from ENDING somebody who harmed her children. Id think seeing Spren, Shadesmar, or something similarly inexplicable would be more the sort of thing to drive her batty, both because her very rational mind would struggle to explain it and because for that reason she'd be less likely to confide in anyone at all.

I dont really have an easy answer for this: -Windrunners because Flying, and because I like their take on honor and the spirit of being good vs the Skybreakers far more rigid "Letter-of" Lawful Adherence, though I might be able to make it work since they get more discretion in choosing their 3rd and 5th Ideals, so given the right circumstances that might actually be better. -Lightweavers because I think Id enjoy being able to make solid holograms, which is unique to them. But most importantly I would far prefer the Personal Truths path over any pre-determined Ideals (which is why I think Hoid ended up being one). -Truthwatchers because illusions are still fun and Healing Others would be my #2 preferred power next to Gravitation. -Bondsmiths because I admire the concept of Unity and because I strongly suspect they have the highest Upper Limits of Power.

Aginor, post-resurrection

I live in the South and as far as I know it's not controversial so much as in the south there are/were culturally a lot of Hyphenated first name (Billy-Jean, Barbara-Sue, Carol-Joy, etc). So when people hear somebody whose last name that also sound like a first name will sometimes miss-understand and think it's a hyphenated first name. My guess is she was trying to avoid people calling her Mary-Robinette as her first name.

So, Im going to have to retract most of what Ive said in this whole thread. It was all based on the belief that it was settled fact that F-gold (and by extension regrowth) could regenerate whole, functional pieces of the Spiritweb (such that a Spike Donor could be fully restored), but @Weltall pointed out that the WOB's I thought confirmed directly that do not actually go that far ()lots of RAFO'), and at least one says you could survive with healing but would left be severely spiritually damaged, worse than a Drab. That moves the bar on the limits of Cosmere healing back quite a bit, to the point where the rest of the idea unravels. Healing can repair Spiritual damage such as a Shardblade cut, but it's the difference between us being able to reattach a severed finger vs regrow one like a lizard. New thought along the similar lines (since I still want to explore the limits of Cosmere Healing): If you poured enough Regrowth into a Drab, could they naturally convert that into Endowment Investiture and Regrow a new Breath?

Another random observation: Szeth experienced color more vividly while wielding Nightblood. Not sure what that implies about the nature of his connection to Nightblood, but it's interesting that he's getting something along the lines of Heightenings without having any Breath

For what it's worth: They were alive at the time of the migration (at least most of them, Ash is second generation) but were not heralds yet.

Nope, though I would guess Ten purely since it's the thematic magic number for the whole Rosharan system. Except for Braize being Nine-themed, which would be the second guess.

@Weltall back up for a sec, where do you get the "worse than a drab" bit? That's new to me and would wildly change my outlook on the entire topic. It would be the difference between F-gold/Regrowth being able to reattach a finger vs regrow a whole new one, and the more regenerative option is where a lot of this is based on. EDIT: so I found these two, and Im not sure he was answering the actual question asked, as he just reiterates that a spike donor doesnt have to die but is loosing a big piece of their web. Admittedly though, all the WOBs I thought confirmed it worked outright are either euqally as vague, or else RAFO'd, so I think it's time I backpedal my stance... EDIT again: One last thing, on the topic of Sazed being able to heal Spook because of some record of his previous Spiritweb, I think the Onmi-temporal nature of the Spiritual realm fully supports that such a thing exists, but I'd also say there's a very real possibility that Sazed could pull it off specifically because he is the Power of Preservation

I like where you are going. How would that reconcile with the more extreme Hemalurgic case, where whole working chunks are removed? Some sort of RAID array redundancy? It still feels like the Savantism should be Corrupted Code, rather than simply being rewritten. And while we're chasing the Computer Code analogy (which I find myself defaulting to a lot), how would you describe Forgery vs Soulcasting?

If true I think we'd have at least two from Roshar itself (or maybe the system as a whole?), with BAM for Voidlight itself and Yelig-Nar for the Surges, so I dont think it would end up being 1/world or even 1/magic system. Though (as a tangent thought) I strongly suspect that the reason Odium is using these specific creatures to channel such things rather than doing it himself is to give him an easy cut-out point for when he eventually leaves the system and needs to rip his investiture away. I think he's been doing whatever he can to resist having to Invest from his own actual power. So instead of splintering his own spren he first tried carving up Singer Souls to make Cognitive shadow spren (the Fused) and then switched tactics to using Sja-anat to "corrupt" existing Spren, which again I have to assume take less of his own essence than creating whole spren from Himself.

This is a theory that has been nagging at me for a while. Per This WOB, the Unmade Re-Shephir is the "general source of the Midnight Essence" but it can be "extracted and used independently", which is why the Radiants of old werent sure who has "released it" in Dalinar's first vision. When they faced creatures of the Midnight Essence, and they were Invested enough to damage Shardplate with their claws, their bodies seem "almost fluid" and they can squeeze themselves through tiny openings if needed. And the kicker is that when they were killed its entire body would deflate with a hissing sound, leaving behind a skin that looked like a sack of black silk. So. Im thinking that Re-Shephir is an UnMade whose purpose is to channel Odium's hacked version of Awakening and and the Midnight Essence is Faux-Breaths, just as Ba-Ado-Mishram is a Channel for Voidlight, an Odium-hacked equivalent to Stormlight. This would have implications on the rest of the Unmade, if some of them are are also conduits intended to imitate the magics of Other Shardworlds. The only other one I have a guess on is Moelach is mimicking the Shades of Threnoly, on the logic that he's using Death's to power his ability to peer into the Spiritual Realm for Precognition, assuming the theory that the Shades are themselves the "morbid" perpendicularities on Threnoly is true. Thoughts?

For what it's worth my father has only read Stormlight and Brandon's WOT books. He found OB more confusing that most because it introduced so many characters that he didnt understand, Azure being a big one, though he missed Edgedancer which was a lot of the problem too. Personally I think it's intended to prime the audiences for the increasing interconnectedness of that narrative, which is only going to move closer to center stage as we approach the Dragonsteel and latter era Scadial stories.

If you are speaking Doylistically, I dont think that would be an issue, especially since Nightblood has already taken a prominent place in the narrative. Warbreaker as a novel was conceived to provide backstory for Nalthis elements that were already present in the proto-stormlight story.

Im not seeing your point. How is healing the change to the spiritweb caused by a Blade or Spike different from healing the changed caused by over-exposure to Investiture. For the record, I 100% agree that you are correct by the evidence, Im just having trouble grasping the Why of it. The only difference I see is Warping damage vs Cutting/Ripping damage. Maybe it keys of the presence of unnatural edges in the web?