teknopathetic

But is it "eternal torture before death"?

I get the impression that the heralds didn't fully realize what would happen to them in Braize, but now that we know, I don't think the Oaths would allow sending someone there in order to save the planet. Sending someone to get tortured in order to save the planet is not very "journey before destination". Even if someone volunteers, it still might not be ethical to let them agree to something so horrid.

I find it interesting that Cultivation let someone take up the shard. She could have showed up and said "DONT DO THAT", but she seems to have wanted Odium to exist rather than being split.

When I read SP3, I got the feeling that someone split the planet and separated it into a Light Sphere-Planet and a Dark Sphere-Planet. Painter's planet is described pretty close to how the shadow-orbs are described.

Seeing as very few singers get the ability after entering the pool, there must be something else involved as well.

I have had similar thoughts as well. A main motif of Stormlight Achieve is refugee populations and the migrations of peoples over time (and the consequences of that to indigenous populations). We have the (a)Shin people, the Singers, The Iriali and there roaming, the Horneaters seeking refuge, the destruction of the Herdazians, the genocide of the Amians (maybe both kinds), the deadeyes, and then other weird populations like Thaylens as well. I think we are going to see Roshar-System peoples escape to another world. My guess - Nalthis, since we have been told those worlds are close together and already aligned in the current story.

I also thought it was propaganda by Odium since future-sight blocks future-sight. But then Hoid also says to be very suspicious/cautious with anyone who claims to see the future, so there appears to be some legitimate issue with futuresight. What do we make of the Sel future-sight guy at the lighthouse though? It cant ALWAYS be of something malevolent, right? Maybe future-sight is manipulatable and often untrustworthy?

If that is a corruption, then I wonder what a regular Truthwatcher gets visions of? That order was so reclusive even before the era of peace, so there isnt much of a way to know. We do have that 1 Truthwatcher saying "I foresaw this" in a gem-record, but we also have a WOB saying Renarin is the first to bond a corrupted Truthwatcher Spren. Honestly, I really thought the Truthwatchers had been semi-corrupted before based on the "I foresaw this", but maybe they had some Cultivation forsight here and there.

I have always thought the hidden ending was the vision of Roshar being destroyed. We know that is one possible outcome, so what if it is actually THE outcome.

TLR may have also been able to change the game once he had remade the planet, so maybe TLR just didnt really need to worry about the old status-quo of the pits. Surely he had enough atium to get him to Well Refilling Day. Come to think of it, do we know what TLR would have done at the well had he made it there? Revitalize downtown? Solve global ashing? Attack Ruin in some meaningful way?

My guess would be "someone" found out a herald had 3 sons. Once this was known, either through trickery or temptation, Chana added a bit of spice to the next child she had. We don't get the impression that the boys are special, so my gut tells me that Shallan is something more complex than regular old cognitive-shadow breeding. My guess would be that Cultivation did something that undercut what Odium was doing, and Shallan will be Cultivation's final gambit. But then I also think Shallan is "the one who will destroy us" mentioned on the back of the book, and I think Roshar will die, so maybe hope I am not right haha

I find it interesting that Shallan can almost "watch" what is happening to people from a distance. Shallan shares a surge with Truthwatchers, so is it possible that regular truthwatchers can do something similar but to a stronger extent?

Shallan specifically says that her mother named her after Shallash.

I kind of assumed Axendwith was Kelsier’s doing. We have a terriswoman moving forward a desolation, so that seems like a likely explanation. Seems odd to think a terriswoman just happens to be on Roshar and just happens to be meddling in world events separately from Kelsier when Kelsier says his team has been meddling in desolations.

It’s also possible we see both the StormFaker in the beginning and then the Stormfather at the end. Gavilar says that the “voice” sometimes seems human and sometimes seems alien, so that makes me think he gets interactions from both. The OG Stormfather just didn’t care to do anything and isn’t aware of what the StormFaker has been up to. And this is supported in the text. Gavilar says the “Stormfather” thinks some of the interactions are not going as they should. That could very well be the real Stormfather being baffled by some of the interactions after StormFaker interference.

But Gavilar's Stomfather doesn't say "I will give up", he says "They cannot know [a herald has died]", and seems to still be very actively working on new plans that will not involve Kholins anymore. Dalinar's Stormfather is full on Emo in WoR, but Gavilar's is talking about using people as tools and getting things done. Nothing about Gavilar's final interactions with the Voice makes me think that the Voice has given up or even remotely feels defeated.

I agree. The "voice" doesn't seem to desire anything remotely connected to what Dalinar's Stormfather wants. The Stormfather we see in WoR even seems to have given up and tries smashing the two storms together to give humans a quick death. Everything the Voice wants is exactly what a Herald might want and not what the Dalinar Stormfather has ever shown the slightest bit of interest in achieving. If we assume these are the same Stormfathers, then we have to assume that the Stormfather changed every single one of his goals, changed his personality, changed his personal interaction style, and changed his willingness to share information all so he could deal with Dalinar differently for very furtive reasons? And he does so even after saying to a dying Gavilar that the voice will never rely on a Kholin again? But then he does, because why not? And then what about Syl? Surely she would have had enough interactions with the Stormfather to have said "Man, the Stormfather sure is weird these days", but she doesn't see anything off with how Dalinar and the Stormfather are interacting. Some readers are saying the Stormfather has changed recently, but Syl would have noticed that for sure. We also see the Stormfather and Kal, and those interactions also defy what Gavilar experiences. I just think it is too much work to believe Gavilar's Stormfather is legit, because then we have to assume the Modern Stormfather has been putting on a persona for years all to trick Dalinar into ... what? Not dying in the Everstorm and making progress on becoming a Herald? That just does not match at all. I am not willing to believe that Syl would be cool with Gavilar's Stormfather. Syl would 100% ring the imposter-alarm. And if the Stormfather had gone through some traumatic personality grafting, then Syl would have noticed and said something by now. And if people are saying that the Stormfather is deceiving even Syl, then something is very very very troubling about the Stormfather overall. And I would be cool with that. The Stormfather being a villian would be intense, but I dont think this is the logical consequence people mean when they say Gavilar's Stormfather is the real Stormfather.

Pattern doesnt actually know what happened here. Pattern wasn't present in the physical realm for this, so Pattern cant really say what happened. Pattern assumed this was the case based on what had happened to Testament. The reader believes Pattern here, but in RoW we discover this is all Crem and Pattern is lying and making things up here and there for Shallan's benefit. Pattern does not know everything that happened with Testament, so we can reasonably assume Pattern was not a witness for the death of Shallan's mother. If there was a bright light, I really don't think Pattern would have any way of knowing.

I would also like to put forward Nohadon as another potential candidate for the Stormfaker: 1. When Dalinar hears Jansah read The Way of Kings at Gavilar's funeral, Dalinar sees unexplained radiant light coming from the sound of the words. Only Dalinar seems to see that light. That is light is never explained in the story and is still a Chekov's Gun. 2. Dalinar has an unexplained Nohadon vision that the Stormfather does not experience. This proves to us that it is possible to have non-Stormfather visions, and suspiciously, the man behind "find the most important words a man can say" is the central figure of that vision. Dalinar remarks over and over that Nohadon seems more real than people in other visions. 3. Both Dalinar and Gavilar read the Way of Kings over and over and over and over, so maybe that is one way to strengthen the connection. Maybe Nohadon can connect to people who have connected to The Way of Kings book? Something happened with Dalinar and that Nohadon vision, and this connection doesnt seem to come from "touch" like with some of the Bondsmith powers we have seen used so far (unless you count touching the book) 4. Nohadon is the author of the Way of Kings and is the person we associate the most with "find the most important words a man can say", so he might be on our list of suspects. 5. This is not confirmed, but some people suspect Nohadon became a Bondsmith later in life. If true, that opens up a lot of doors. We don't understand at all what a Bondsmith might be able to set up.

We see that Taln has super reflexes, so I think we are to assume the Heralds are invested even without their blades. They likely are able to heal from wounds and things like that seeing as none of them had died for 4500 year. A shardblade to the heart may have overwhelmed the Herald healing ability and sent Chana back to Braize. It is even possible a living shardblade is a little different than a dead one when it comes to power. Even if not, you can summon a living blade a lot faster than a dead one, so that may have been what gave Shallan the unexpected window to achieve the kill.

I wonder if the Noadon vision might have a clue as well? Also, who is telling Noadon about finding the words? Noadon says that "she" claimed to see the future, but also claimed not to be touched by the void. You would think Noadon would know who Cultivation was, so who is "she"? He mentions the Nightwatcher later on, so I doubt the Nightwatcher is "she".

Shallan catches her father looking towards the safe a few times throughout the years as well. It is unclear if he sees the light too, nd this is left openly referenced and ambiguous in the text. Thinking a child is going to psychosomatically hallucinate light as a representation of sin is a little complex for my liking. Shallan represses things; she does not hallucinate them. As to why can only she (and maybe Lin) see it? Maybe they have a connection to the event that makes that possible. Maybe they are more connected to Chana for some reason. I dont see Brandon writing it in a way that has a child psychosomatically hallucinating. More likely he would put something in plain sight he knew most people would dismiss. We have been trained to dismiss Shallan, so this twist works pretty well. I also think there may be some sexism going on here as well when it comes to believing Shallan's flashback. I wonder if people would be so quick to dismiss Dalinar's memory or Khaldin's if they had seen blinding light after the killing of an expected Herald. Heck, we read Szeth's screams as likely a manifestation too. Sure, Shallan has repression issues, but something feels - more extreme in readers' willingness to dismiss her initial experience, to conflate repression with hallucination, and to discount her flashbacks about the blinding light that span nearly 5 years.

Interesting idea. We know Shallan met the Seon at some point, so maybe something like that occurred. Do you recall what Kelek said to them about where to start looking?

"The world ended, and Shallan was to blame. - Words of Radiance, Chapter 10. Mentioned by @honorblades ---- If Chana is the dead herald, I think we should talk about what the Bright Light Shallan and her father see was. What did Lin put into the safe? Why did he act so quickly to lock the item up? When I first put the Chana theory forward, my main point was that the Bright Light in the safe did not make any sense and that I did not believe that Shallan just hallucinated the whole event. That was the key element that snapped the theory into my mind. When we learned about Shallan's first spren and her trip to the garden, I was then 100% sure something magical was indeed put into the Davar safe (and not just a regular shardblade). Affter the herald-death, Child-Shallan saw a glowing soul be placed into the safe. Then Child-Shallan runs to the garden and knows that Testament would be in the garden (and not locked in a safe). Child Shallan cannot both believe her spren is locked away and that her spren is not locked away. It is only Adult Shallan that thinks that the blade was in the safe. But at the same time Adult Shallan believes she can summon a blade in TWoK, so Adult Shallan does not truly believe her blade is locked away in the safe. We then have Pattern, who may not fully understand what happened with Chanarach, convinces her that she must be misremembering the glowing-soul part. Shallan overtime begins to doubt if her memories of the glowing soul were real, and who can blame her? But childhood Shallan is not wrong about the glowing soul. Childhood Shallan has no reason to confuse a shardblade with the glowing soul of her mother. Why would a child see a weapon and think "yup, that is a glowing soul". If Shallan killed a herald, we really should consider that the glowing light truly was something invested and not the Testament-blade. Something was put into that safe that could not be a regular old shardblade. It was something that glowed somewhat like a dawnshard or the aural-light Dalinar seen when listening to Jasnah recite the Way of Kings at Gavilar's funeral. What was that "soul" Shallan remembers being placed into the safe? If Shallan in fact killed a herald, then the light is almost certainly something real. Shallan, and likely Lin, were able to see the thing through the safe. Shallan is blinded when even walking by the door. That is weird. That is heavy levels of connection weird. Many had dismissed this as "she is just crazy", but I don't think Shallan was that crazy as a child. That is one MASSIVE psychosomatic response. If Chana was just a woman, that might be more believable. But if Chana is a herald, then bright glowy light hidden in a safe becomes something we need to treat as textually important. I have had some time to mull over what was in the safe, and I have four ideas: 1) A Soul Is it possible Lin knew Chana was a herald and somehow locked her Soul into an aluminum safe? Do we ever hear when the safe was opened? I wonder if Chana was locked in there for a time and then was released at some point (maybe when the Davars fled the estate or some earlier time I am forgetting?). It is also possible the soul slowly leaked out just like with Jezrian. I do prefer the idea that the safe had been prepared for a purpose though. Lin seemed to act with quick reflexes to lock the item away in the safe. If the safe did somehow slow the return, then this may explain why Chana lasted 5 years before the desolation. 2) Ba Ado Mishram Another idea is that Ba Ado Mishram was hidden inside Chana. This would mean that Chana had an unmade gemstone inside of her, and that the dark influence inside the Davar estate was that influence leaking out into the household. No one would ever think to look inside a herald for the gem, so that is the best place to hide it. Lin would have known this, and he held on as long as possible as the influence poisoned him. I think Wit provides some evidence for this. Wit knows there is a Dark Force influencing Shallan. Maybe Wit is one of the people who knew where Ba Ado Mishrim was hidden and was therefor able to provide support to Shallan to fight back that influence, or maybe he could see the tendrils of influence around Shallan. 3) An Honourblade It could be Chana's herald blade as well, if it was actually a blade. Maybe the Herald blade appeared and Lin stuffed it away in the safe so no one would find it. There may have been a coverup here. The Stormfather/faker says "they cannot know" after a herald dies, so we know an effort is made to hide what has happened. We know Ishar was with the Shin for a while before Tukar, so maybe the fact a blade vanished was hushed-up by him or someone amongst the Shin. We have contextual evidence that at least someone didn't want anyone to know Chana had died, so a coverup is certain to have happened at least by one entity. 4) A Gemheart Another idea that occurred to me was maybe Heralds have gemhearts that get left behind? We don't know how heralds are brought back, but storing a soul in a gem might make sense. That is how fused do it, so gems might be used here as well. Bonus) 1 +2 + 4 They locked Ba Ado Mishram in Chana's gemheart. We see that Venli can lock a voidspren away in her own gemheart, so the groundwork for this occurring may have already been forshadowed in the text. -- Those are the four ideas I have had for what is in the safe. It could be something else, but I am now 120% convinced the glowing light placed in the safe is something important. If it turns out I am right about Chana being Chana Davar, then my supposition about the Glowing Soul actually being real is something I feel we cant dismiss merely as "Shallan be trippin". After RoW, I think we should be very interested in unexplained lights.

Shallan sniped an unprepared Herald with a Shardblade. We dont know what can kill a herald, but we do know that the heralds did often lose members each desolation. A shardblade to the heart might make sense. We also dont know if heralds are easier to kill without their blades on them or not, or if or how a herald can draw in stormlight or remain invested on their own. And in terms of physical death, Chana would have returned to Braize. We know the herlads dont go directly to Odium because the heralds talked about being able to hide on Braize for a time before being caught. We dont know what the "hide and seek" event looks like on Braize , but maybe her return was unexpected and she managed to hide from Odium longer than usual? As well, we dont know how strong Chana's will was. It is possible she took some time to break after being caught. The other thing from my theory was that Shallan claims Lin put her mother's soul into a Safe, and that the Safe continued to glow for about 5 years. In my original theory, the glowing soul in the safe was my #1 interesting item. I think the glowing soul and Lin's rush to shove it into a safe are still important aspects to whatever happened on the day Shallan's mother died. Many people discounted this as Shallan's delusions, but i very strong believe that unexplained glowing lights pulled out of corpses are likely important in a book series all about lights, gems, and souls.