teknopathetic

So glad you asked questions about Autonomy and Aethers. My theory that Autonomy was Aetherbound before she took up a shard survives!

It has two characters from The Stormlight Archive acting as wise sage/exposition info dump people to the main cast of the book. It also has another character that is Stormlight adjacent and is better understood if you’ve read those books. the story is also very clearly being told to people living in the planet from Stormlight Archieve, so the base narrative sort of expects you to know who the people on this world on it’s very minor, but it would be weird not knowing imo in my personal opinion, the book is better if you know who these two characters from another word are, and what the third character from another world is. I’d read Stormlight first. It’s intended that you have read Stormlight IMO

I love the idea of the Yoki Hijo being the 16 large splinters.

I was thinking 14, as there are 14 people like Yumi

Well, as far as we know the children of returned cannot change their appearance unless they are directly in the line of succession for the throne and are therefor connected to the royal locks ability. But the Royal locks thing is weird as hell, so who knows. Or maybe Shallan is closer to a returned than to the child of a returned.

I wonder if you are in-fact correct about the breaths. I am not sure if you have read the Shallan's Mither theory that someone else posted to you, butmaybe Shallan's mother utilized breaths in some way to create Shallan? Especially considering some info from Warbreaker. Breaths is an easy solution to the question of how a Herald might be able to procreate. Who knows what this means for Shallan's brothers though. Very Mild Warbreaker Spoiler

1) Where did the humans on Ashyn come from? 2) Did Odium bring anything/anyone with him after he left Sel? If so, what?

I wonder if only human species get breath.

That’s why I firmly believe that Cultivation was meaningfully involved in bringing about Honour’s death. Honours death allowed a lot to change, and maybe his death was used to fertilize changes that saw to be beneficial. GivenCultivations intent, the 10,000 years of stagnation must have been quite hard for Cultivation to handle. Cultivation clearly wants something mind boggling new, and it just seems like Odium had some help in getting rid of Honour once and for all (re: but WE killed you!) If cultivation saw that killing Honour would let them finally replace Rayze, then wouldn’t she do it? Especially considering her intent: reap to sow.

I can see Cultivation wanting to shut down foresight. Cultivation seems to use foresight better than most shards and to plan quite far into the future. If there were many humans on her team running around with foresight, then it would be harder to stay in control of her plans. As we saw with Renarin, a truthwatcher with foresight can cause A LOT of ripple effects in shardic machinations. If I were Cultivation, I wouldn't want people around my team causing any ripples whatsoever. Starting a cultural belief ghat foresight is always evil might be the best way to reduce future-sight reverb.

Venli is not only a Willshaper, but she is also in the Regal Envoyform which gives her the powers of translation and interpretation (almost like a 3rd surge). I wonder if Willshaper + Envoy is letting her do some strange things in regards to translation Stormlight to Voidlight and vice versa

Do we have any information on where human on Ashyn came from? I am not sure if they were there before Odium, or if Odium brought them to Ashyn. As far as we know, there isn't a perpendicularity there (though maybe there was in the past before Honour and Cultivation settled on Roshar permanently)

I agree. She seems to think Dalinar was a huge risk, but she rolled the dice anyway. It would make sense that Mr.T would present risks as well. It would be interesting to know if Cultivation chose Mr.T specifically before his trip to the Nightwatcher or if Mr.T showed up one day and Cultivation decided to try and work with him as best she could. Is her plan the best of all possible plans or is she working opportunistically?

I thought the word sibling was used because the sibling doesn't have a human gender (so sister/brother doesn't work).

I was wondering when Shardcast would get around to those spicier WOBs!

It could be that there are different kinds of Sho Del, but we just don't really know anything about this.

Interesting idea. A merger of Practicality and Wisdom could be something like Prudence (which I think sounds very cool as a shard name)

Shallan's family was pretty connected. Perhaps the Davars had access to offworld breaths as well as the soulcaster, Skybreaker internships, and the possible seon-box? Or, if the Shallan's mom is a herald thing pans out, perhaps maybe breaths are used to allow a cognitive shadow to have children? Who knows, but very cool!

As many people have noticed, the magic from Whitesand looks a lot like an Aether magic system. 1. Sandmasters on Dayside mentally connect with the sand much like Tress does with her spores 2. People exchange water in order for the ability to use the abilities. 3. The sand and the spores change colour to grey when depowered. 4. Just like in Tress, the investiture comes from outer-space from an object in the solar system. The smaller Sun on Taldain is said to be surrounded by particulates. Hmmm, sounds a bit like spores. Could the pulsing be the pulsing of something like an Aether? 5. Sandmasters must hand the sand to an initiate to begin a new "bud" within a Sandmastery initiate. This handing of the grains must occur like in Aether of Night. We know that Aethers are contemporary with Adonalsium, so it stands to reason there would have been Aetherbound on Yolen. And if there were Aetherbound on Yolen, then those people likely would have been strong enough or informed enough to get involved with something like the shattering. It actually would be odd if no Aetherbound were involved in the shattering, either as antagonists to the 16+ conspirators, or a part of the group itself. An aetherbound Shardholder might actually act quite a bit like Autonomy does: the idea of granting your powers to other people (avatars) but still having them be a part of you sounds A LOT like how Aethers work. Basically, Autonomy is growing buds of herself similar to how an Aether bud might grow in an aetherbound person as we see in The Lost Metal. An Aetherbound might also see Autonomy as something granted by power, as the Aetherbound gained power from her aether but was able to use it autonomously. Aethers also have a fluid identity that incorporates and individual and autonomous aspects, and as aethers likely do not have human genders, the we/he/she/i could be an Aetherlike gender-expression. If Bavadin were to be an Aetherbound, perhaps ascending caused some very very strange things to occur for both her and the Aether she was attached to? This could explain why Bavadin seems to have her own "bone aether", but that the Aether is not one of the original 12. TINFOIL-ER IDEAS This could also explain some tensions we have seen in Taldain's history? Perhaps the Aether and the Aetherbound do not always see eye to eye. Perhaps Dayside and Darkside are split as some sort of compromise between the two beings and the two invested stars? As a larger tinfoil, what if Bavadin and the Aether eventually broke their bond and had a nasy breakup? This could explain why Bavadin locked down the planet (to keep the Aether Out) and why a Dark Aether seems to have appeared in recent history (the Aether that had been part of the Ascension to Autonomy).

Would it make sense if Bavadin was an Aether or an Aetherbound of note? The idea of granting your powers to other people but still having them be a part of you sounds A LOT like how Aether's work. Aethers also have a fluid identity that incorporates and individual and autonomous aspects, so this all sounds a lot like an Aether to me. Could also explain why there appears to be Aether-like aspects to the magic without it actually being a known Aether.

We still are not sure if the "unite them" has anything to do with the Stormfather. The Stormfather claims to have never heard the "unite them" voice at all.

Amazing as always! I agree with Overlady that I’d prefer a more serious tone, but in the end enjoyed the book. Audiobook Ulaam was too much for me though and might have to stick to paper version with this novel because the “Oooooh myyyyjyyyyy” affect was far too distracting. Huck was amazingly done as a voice though!

Let's say the Aethers predate humanity or mortal-type life, then their 12 essences would be very focused on their own experiences in the universe. To an aether, maybe "sharpness"would be a core aspect of the universe. And likewise, "meat"would make absolutely zero sense to an aether as something inherent to the universe.

Her inborn power is increased mental speed, so perhaps that let her get around something?

I wonder if the reason the Crimson Sea has random rainfall is because there is an immortal scientist living under the sea and screwing around with the ecology. It would be interesting to know if the Crimson Sea was always this unstable or if it got worse in the recent past. Sort of related, but is that maybe why the Iriali left? Maybe their island was on the Crimson? Charlie seems to know a lot about the Iriali, so maybe the Irali were on a neighbouring sea.