teknopathetic

Ba-Ado-Mishram was supposed to be a Herald, but she defected to the Singers/Odium's side (allowing Taln to take her place). The heralds seem to know her quite well, and I think this hints at a relationship prior to her unmaking. It also might make Nale's swap make a bit more sense as he is not the first herald-type person to change to the Singer side.

I really hope the villain's from Era 2 are the Iriali and some new Shard-like force from the Dor. We know Sel is very close to Scadrial, so it would be great of Sel was just expanding it's influence. I know Autonomy is everyone's favorite answer, but I hope we get Sel thrown back into the mix.

Could strong human souls go to the Barrier Storm? Could there be more truth to the Vorin afterlife than just the memory of the Heralds vs the Fused?

He also saw a weird glowing light when Jasnah was reading out The Way of Kings on the day of Gavilar's funeral. That and the childhood lights are still odd an unexplained moments. Maybe Rysn got hers from reading the words, but Dalinar got his from hearing the words. There is also a new WOB that we have seen someone else who has a Dawnshard. Shallan also so an unexplained glowing light, so maybe the Davars are an option too.

This always reminded me of the Tranquiline Halls "fight in the Afterlife" narrative. I know it looks like that myth is just about the war with the Singers and Ashyn/Braize, but it would be interesting if there actually a bit more reality to being able to fight in another realm. An army of Cognative-realm humans would be interesting.

Also a possibility as well for sure. We know the process for Herlads to have children is non-typical, so that opens the door to a lot.

Or potentially, killing him with silver prevented his secrets from being taken at death. That would actually explain why an unmade was around. Maybe it was gathering intel, but the aluminum necklace messed that up.

I was googling "what are *spern*" just in case it was a word I don't know. I am ... slow. ---- @Aspiring WriterAs for taking Spren off world: we know it is possible somehow, but people haven't found a way yet. Aluminum-boxes seem to be a possible component, or perhaps storing or faking/tapping connection may be another useful tool. We have the Aluminum-Chain seen in the Shadesmaar market, so I wonder if that is trying to give us a hint that something is possible with that. I also feel like SIlver might be an element, as we see it react quite strongly to some cognitive entities. I don't know if you have read secret history, but we do see a a cognitive entity taking shelter in a shardpool (though not a standard one) and avoiding some issues with connection because of it, so maybe that is also something that could be worked with. In my own opinion, I feel like a combination of connection medallions, aluminum, and undiscovered properties of silver will get a lot done. Silverlight, the place of learning, has got to be named "silver" for a reason, IMO. However, I assume every magic system would have a potential way of adding something to this problem. Could a divine breath be used to grant this ability to an individual Spren? What about those connection potions that at least one magic system can make? Etc Etc

Purelake Fishymancing is obviously the most powerful.

I like Shallan, and I worry that the dislike of her falls on sexism. Dalinar and Kal have a lot of similar overlap to Shallan, but they rarely get the hate. Dalinar was much MUCH worse when he was working through his demons. What has Shallan done? Told some jokes and tried to help people while developing multiple personalities? I just don't think the treatment of her has been fair by many readers.

Thanks for this!

Vo Returns for a week (but might not be true) Has children in that time (which we still don't know how to do but apparently he did somehow) ? All legitimate heirs have extra abilities Hair Colour Changes (that make Siri and Vivenna hungry, which is a little bit like Lift) Increased affinity for commanding (according to Vasher) Other things? So yeah? If Vivenna got cut, could she heal that? Kind of seems within the realm of possibility, right? She can regrow her hair I think, so if she/soceity believed she could heal her skin, maybe she could?

The Royal locks thing is still EXTREMELY strange. It only touches people who are perceived as legitimate heirs to the throne as determined by ???? (the royal family? Endowment? The populace). Is this genetic? Can any member of the royal family have the royal locks if they simply believed they were in line to the throne? Could it change? Like, all the heirs die so a 2nd cousin or bastard child is now next in line? That is one weird instigation of investiture. It makes me wonder if a command was used or something to permanently give some advantages to the royal family's decedents.

On my reading I took The Deniers of Masks as the forces of Trell, but that was just my read. Also, doesn't the whole "priests died frozen in supplication" and "we heard to from the lips of a dying priest" all sound little staged? The whole thing is just so staged. Would Kelsier let his people freeze to death? Seems more likely someone dragged those bodies there and placed them in a prayer position, and then someone had orders to leak the information about the temple at a certain point. I also like Argent's Iri idea. Seems like if Kelsier wanted to make a fortress, he might go ask the people who's fortress he was just in.

I wonder if a Gold Misting would be able to make a stamp that is "correct" so to speak. Gold seems to show you a Gold-shadow that somehow "exists", so if a Forger were to create that perfectly, what would happen? And the Gold Shadow is even weirder. A stamped person would have a different Gold Shadow Dirigible (paraphrased) If Shai had a gold shadow, and she used one of her Essence Stamps, would her gold shadow change to reflect her new self? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Yes, because she is changing her soul so the gold shadow changes.

Shallan/Veil in RoW Kolinar realizing that their scheme with the bread delivery for the poor was actually making everything 1000 times worse is the saddest scene in the Cosmere for me. The speech from the kid about having to wait around all day for Shallan was devastating (and then what came next of course was also horrid). Also. it spoke to me on a metaphorical level concerning the harms some volunteer charity groups do when they bust into a region without knowing anything of what is going on in the local community. People can do a lot of harm when they try to give charity without taking the time to learn what the people on the ground actually want or need or have capacity for.

We gotta get the Godking a Nahel bond.

The eyebrows confuse me too. Can a Thay lan have children with a Veden or other regions? What do people in border zones look like? Are there humonoid spren that have Theylan eyebrows? Are Theylans "from" Ashyn or are they a separate migrant group? ---- As for this, hair follicles have built in when-to-fall-out instructions. This sometimes goes faulty in individual hairs, but all in all hair has terminal length.

The nightmares to me seemed like the shadow-items that are created on Yumi's planet.

To me, Ishar might not be the same as the other heralds in terms of feeling the Oathpact due to the fact that Ishar was the one who forged the Oathpact. The regular heralds within the Oathpact cannot feel a go-to-Braize death, but maybe the creator of the Oathpact might be able to feel changes in it. I think it makes sense that Ishar might be more sensitive than others in this regard as someone who somehow manipulated bonds in such a powerful way. Since Ishar made the strings of connection, him feeling them acutely makes sense to me. And when it comes to Kelek at the renouncing, the heralds had already dispersed before Kelek was even done fighting. If Ishar left before Kelek was done fighting, then those who remained to wait for a bit wouldn't know the fate of Kelek. From Ishars POV, it doesn't really matter if Kelek dies or not - as long as Taln is dead the plan is fine. If Kelek dies a little after the renunciation, so much the better as far as Ishar would care (though, I have always been very very suspicious of the fact no one died except Taln though. This has always reeked of conspiracy). We just know Ishar was the one who forged the Oathpact without any knowledge of who/what else was involved. For all we know, it was Ishar and a Dawnshard or Ishar with some leftover Ashyn artifact or Ishar and his Honourblade. There just isn't any information here. Honour is involved in the binding of Odium, but that is not the same thing as the Oathpact. The Oathpact is a newer thing than trapping Odium in the system. The Oathpact, as far as we know, is just about trapping Fused. And as far as we know, this was something Ishar did. We have a WOB that Honour was involved, but how much is anyone's guess. And just because Honour was involved doesn't mean Honour/Stormfavast-Shadow would feel anything.

1. Shai 2. Shallan 3. Silence 4. Dalinar 5. Sazed

Devotion sounds like a safe bet. If not that, Endowment. If I can have two, then I choose Whimsey and Cultivation together. To have a whimsical creator guiding the evolution of a planet would be amazing.

I don't know if I missed something, but I never thought the Everstorm was confirmed to return the Fused to Roshar 100% by itself with no other steps needed. My understanding was that the Everstorm was a chunk of the Braize-Storm brought over to Roshar, and that the Everstorm would reconnect the Singer's to their identity and maybe return Voidspren for potential use (maybe - timeline here is off too). However, I never got the impression that Fused could return this way until a Herald had broken. The impression I got was that the Storm was a way of getting back in Roshar, but that there were going to be more steps needed to get the Fused back and to then start using the Everstorm as a Spawn-Point. Ulim: "It will take something big to restore the minds of the singers around the world. So we’re going to prime the pump, so to speak, with your people. Get them into stormform and pull the big storm over from Shadesmar. Odium thinks it will work, and considering he’s anything but a little god, we are going to do what he says." Re-Connecting the Singers is not anything to do with ending the Oathpact, as far as I can tell. This needs to be just a step towards something else. It seemed to me that getting the Everstorm on the board would allow for Odium to have soldiers again (sort of like what Mishram was doing). Then Odium's plan ends up being a moot point, as something causes Taln to return BEFORE the Everstorm is in the Physical realm. Before is the key part here I think. Taln returning AFTER the Everstorm summonming would mean he Everstom had the ability to call Fused without a broken herald, but since Taln came back BEFORE the Everstorm, we just dont know what is allowing what. I think something happened to Chana, and this caused the Everstorm timeline to near match the Oathpact timeline. What actually happened with Chana is hard to say, as it appears a glowing soul was in the Davar house for several years, and then we don't know how long a herald could hide on Braize if the herald's arrival was 100% unexpected. We also don't know what Chana did once she returned to Braize. Since we have Nale defecting, so who knows what Chana has agreed to do now that she is at the mercy of Odium again.

That was a concern for many people. Something in the stormlight 5 prologue might potentially shed some light the Everstorm vs a Herald Breaking debate, but we can’t speak of that in this thread. Maybe I should make a new one for post S5P readers to avoid accidental spoilers for people.

Originally, the thing that tipped me off to this theory is the glowing light that Lin Davar puts in the safe. If we go with this theory being true, what do we think the glowing light was? This detail truly was the thing that pulled this theory together. Pattern was not there, so he is not a witness to the event and is not reliable in any way. Does anyone else think Shallan didn’t hallucinate the light as a child? What did get out in the safe and wad it a gem heart? Actually the soul of a herald? Something else?