teknopathetic

Super Sus that the first Zellion just happened to bring his people to a planet where Shades wouldn't be a problem. And to a planet that is heavily invested with no known source causing it. And that had no perpendicularity meaning it would be extremely hard to find on one's own. My crack theory is that this planet is actually some sort of charging device that Ambition left before she passed away from her wounds. The first Zellion knew of it, and was either directed or influenced to head towards it and make a new home. Ambition is charging something up there, and eventually ambition's people will get to use it. Brandon has said that Ambition would be a black magic the gathering deck, and that screams "resurrection device" to me. What would be more ambitious than creating your own sun-charged device that would eventually allow you to resurrect? And the people living on that planet would need to be pretty ambitious at the start to make living their work. We learn that the Deepest Ones are mountain sized monsters on Threnody, and then we learn that this new planet has Mountain sized features that don’t make sense. Hmmmm. HMMMM

I also thought Ambition. We know Ambition fled and survived for a bit after she was mortally wounded. Perhaps this sun and planet are some artifact she left behind for some reason before she was finally killed? The First Zellion learned of this somehow and brought the Threnodite people back there to a planet that would not be overcome by the Shade issue (perhaps something Ambition foresaw?) My gut would say that this planet and star are some kind of resurrection device, but I have no proof of that. It seems to be an artifact that is pulling in investiture at a crazy rate over and over again, and it doesnt seem to be releasing that energy anywhere. To me, it seems like this artifact has been charging for 1000s of years...and anything being intentionally charged must eventually have a use. Ambition for late-game villian!

Does this book imply that Nomad was the leader of the Skybreaker for a time? My mind keep thinking “was Nomad a Skybreaker herald?” He joined a new order and became its leader before some catastrophic event took it down? And lastly, seems like Nomaf may have met Aux somewhere strange. Nomad draws attention to the fact that he met aux in a world made of obsidian. Sure, that could be Shademaar because of the obsidian connection, but to me it made it seem like maybe he met Aux on Ashyn or Braize. I just don’t think Nomad would consider Rosharan Shadesmaar to be “another world”. Lastly, I am honestly annoyed that in a book entirely about someone having held a Dawnshard, Brandon decided to never mention which one he held. I felt as a reader I had been promised this by the narrative, but it was intentionally withheld from me for some meta reason.

Anyone else get the feeling that Nomad met Aux off of Roshar itself? Maybe Braize or Ashyn? The way Nomad described meeting Aux on another world made of obsidian seemed odd to me. I know Shadesmaar was described as obsidian, but I really don’t think a Nomad would consider Rosharan Shadesmaar another world. We also know that Nomad has at least been to Ashyn, so it is possible Aux was living on a different planet in the Rosharan system.

Shallan is my favourite character actually. Right at the start going through her chapters and delving into all the mysteries was incredibly fascinating to me. Her chapters are my favourite in TWoK because you get to delve deep into the world and the eldritch mystery of the lore. Also, I have a big heart-on for anyone that tried to cheer up others even when their own experiences could be absolutely crushing. I find that to be quite a strength of character. My Shallan love goes deep. I read her as if she should be believed, and that's how I found all these hints about Shallan and her mother. --- Side note for Shallan fans (or people who want to see why people like Shallan) I am really digging the Lost in Rosier re-read podcast since both of the hosts love Shallan as well and it is great to see people dig into what makes Shallan a compelling and sympathetic read.

I thought the yellow was on the other planet, and the yellow was managing to pierce the shroud (making the planet visible like a star).

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).