dantlee

While this doesn't necessarily fit in with the "nine shadows" part (and personally, I think the correct answer there is the most straightforward one - the 9 shadows simply represent the unmade), my favorite theory about Odium's champion is that it is Oroden. 

I should note that the part about Odium's champion being a baby isn't my theory originally, and I unfortunately forget where I first read it in the forums (otherwise I'd link to it and give proper credit), but essentially it's based on this death rattle:  

Quote

"I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw. ”

— Collected on Shashanan 1173, 23 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a darkeyed youth of sixteen years. Sample is of particular note.

If Kaladin is Honor's champion, wouldn't this fit perfectly? Based on everything we know about Kaladin, and his renewed oath to protect Oroden in particular, if he were faced with the choice of killing a defenseless babe to "gain us further breath to draw" (i.e. time, which the Stormfather revealed is all that the forces of Honor can gain by defeating Odium's champion), I find it very unlikely that he would kill the child even if that meant dooming all of humanity. I also subscribe to the theory that Odium actually wins on Roshar, making the Stormlight Archive a particularly tragic series - but an incredibly important one for the events of the cosmere, as Brandon has made clear on multiple occasions. 

9 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Haven't even been able to finish the first chapter yet.... But seriously, the mental image of Syl on a headboard, cheering Kaladin on... 

"Harder, Kaladin! Harder! Oh yeah... That's it. Hit it" 

I'm.... Laughing and dying inside. 

"More tongue, you dour idiot!" 

Lots of questions, as usual.

Dalinar, you poor, old fool. What is Mr. T going to do to you now? 

Was Dalinar referencing Szeth's old honorblade when he mentioned a workaround for not having the Dour Idiot around to fly to oathgates and open them from the other side? 

And the part about Voidbringer negotiations with the Azish is really fascinating. Specifically the idea that (see bold below)

Quote

 

“ ‘Fortunately,’ ” came the reply, “ ‘our city stands, and the enemy is not actively attacking any longer. We are negotiating with the hostiles.’ ”

“Negotiating?” Dalinar said, shocked. He turned to Teshav, who shook her head in wonder.

“Please clarify, Your Majesty,” Navani said. “The Voidbringers are willing to negotiate with you?”

“ ‘Yes,’ ” came the reply. “ ‘We are exchanging contracts. They have very detailed demands, with outrageous stipulations. We hope that we can forestall armed conflict in order to gather ourselves and fortify the city.’ ”

“They can write?” Navani pressed. “The Voidbringers themselves are sending you contracts?”

“ ‘The average parshman cannot write, so far as we can tell,’ ” the reply came. “ ‘But some are different—stronger, with strange powers. They do not speak like the others.’ ”

“Your Majesty,” Dalinar said, stepping up to the spanreed writing table, speaking more urgently—as if the emperor and his ministers could hear his passion through the written word. “I need to talk to you directly. I can come myself, through the portal we wrote of earlier. We must get it working again.

 

”I wonder, is this just stormform or one of the other Unmade-associated forms (Decayform, Smokeform, Nightform) mentioned in the WoR epigraphs?

The part about Adolin feeling a "pulse of Radiance" and seeing himself perfected is by far the strongest evidence I've seen so far that he'll become a KR. I know some people may think that's just Renarin using regrowth, but we never had any indication that the people Lift healed felt anything remotely similar. 

Quote

A pulse of Radiance washed through Adolin, and for an instant he saw himself perfected. A version of himself that was somehow complete and whole, the man he could be.

I wasn't a huge fan of Adolin becoming a KR himself, as I thought that would make the entire Kholin family too conveniently central in the future of Roshar. But alas. 

Finally, the fact that some Parshendi/voidbringers are negotiating, while others raided supplies, and others stole ships, makes me think that at least some of the Unmade are already leading their own separate factions and telling them exactly what to do. Not looking great for team Honor/anti-Rayse so far lol. 

It seems like Renarin already knows what's going on with Adolin and Sadeas, and Shallan is absolutely going to find out. The real question is, who is going around murdering troops in the same way Sadeas was killed? Perhaps Ialai is organizing some form of revenge? 

I need to find the few WoB we have on Tezim - he's clearly going to be a very important character/potential antagonist. Is there any way he's actually a sliver of Honor like he claims? (At least that's how I interpreted "Aspect of the Almighty") 

also, love that pretty much everyone's criticisms of shallan being mute to this point are entirely thrown out the window. Cmon y'all, stop doubting BS lol. 

3 hours ago, the_archduke said:

If Brandon finished ASOIAF, it would be over in half a book.  Take out the gratuitous nudity and violence (which Brandon's wouldn't write) and there isn't much left to that story.

Eh, I'm not quite so negative on GRRM. I think he's quite overrated as a writer - his prose tends to drag on for pages at a time describing nothing more than scenery or food, but overall I think he's a brilliant worldbuilder and a master at subverting expectations. His character development is also excellent.

And this is unrelated to his fantasy writing, but I have also rarely read any author more adept at writing food porn. 

4 hours ago, ccstat said:

The gold surprised me as well. We've all been focusing on the red eyes, thinking that makes Rayse's color red. 

Now the reference to (Alloy of Law spoilers)

  Hide contents

"Men of red and gold" starts to make a more sense. I will take it as further evidence that Odium (gold) and "Trell" (red) are working together, though there are other interpretations.

 

Plot twist, those are actually Lannister troops - Brandon is laying the groundwork for integrating ASOIAF into the Cosmere, since GRRM will never finish the books and BS will have to step in like he did for WoT. 

16 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Foreword

This post contains a link to a document containing text from an unpublished scene in Stormlight Archive, which contains spoilers for Words of Radiance. It also contains an element from MIstborn. Read onward at your discretion.

  Reveal hidden contents

From the Tor site:

A WARNING FROM BRANDON: This scene gives major spoilers for Words of Radiance. Please don’t continue unless you’ve finished that book. This is a very short sequence of Jasnah’s backstory I’ve been reading at signings. It’s not a polished draft. I often read very rough (and potentially continuity-error filled) sequences at signings as a special treat to people who attend. This scene is even rougher than most—first draft, and shouldn’t be taken as canon quite yet, as I haven’t firmed up or fixed all the terminology or Shadesmar interactions.

We’re excited to share with you a scene from somewhere in between the second and third book of the Stormlight Archive, containing back story that may or may not appear in the forthcoming Book Three. As Brandon says above, there are BIG SPOILERS for Book Two, so don’t dive in to this before you’ve read that volume.

[Source]

 

So I was reading the scene again and when I read the line "Despite their years together, his language constructions still baffled her on occasion." I was reminded of Scadrian High Imperial. If you don't know, High Imperial (Eastern slang TFE-era) is a slang in Era 1 and Era 2 of Mistborn which exists to make communication more difficult. For more info, see here.

Anyhow, I then decided to take the entire scene and change all of Ivory's dialogue to High Imperial, or at least as close to High Imperial as I could manage. It's pretty rough since my understanding of High Imperial is pretty weak. Anyhow, enjoy. If you have any suggestions for improving the High Imperial, feel free to offer them.

 

 

 

Jasnah Kholin opened her eyes and gasped, fingers rigid, clawing at the obsidian ground. A knife in her chest! She could feel it grinding on her bones as it slipped between two ribs, glancing off her sternum. She spasmed, rolling into a ball, quivering.

“Jasnah.”

No. She could not lay prone. She fought to her knees, but then found herself raking her fingers across the ground, trembling, heaving breaths in and out. Moving—even breathing—was perversely difficult, not because of pain or incapacity, but because of the overwhelming sense of tension. It made her shake, made her made her want to run, fight, do anything she could to not die.

She shouted, stumbling to her feet, and spun about, hand on her chest.

Wet blood. Her blood. A dress cut with a single knife hole.

“Jasnah.” A figure all in black. A landscape of obsidian ground reflecting a bizarre sky and a sun that did not change locations.

She darted her head from side to side, taking in everything but registering very little of it.

Storms. She could sense that knife again, sliding into her flesh. She felt that same helplessness, that same panic—emotions which had accompanied the knife’s fall. She remembered the darkness consuming her, her hearing fading, the end.

She closed her eyes and shivered, trying to banish the memories. Yet the effort of trying to do so only seemed to solidify them.

She knew that she would remember dying for as long as it took the darkness to claim her again.

“Wasing well,” Ivory said. “Wasing well, Jasnah.”

“The knife,” she whispered, opening her eyes, angry at how her voice trembled, “the knife was unexpected.” She breathed in and out, trying to calm herself. That puffed out the last of her Stormlight, which she had drawn in at the last possible moment, then used like a lash to pull herself into this place. It had kept her alive, healed her.

Ivory said that while a person held enough Stormlight, only a crushing blow to the head itself would kill. She’d believed him, but storms that hadn’t made it any easier to lay there before the knife. Who would have expected them to stab her? Shouldn’t they have assumed that a blow to the head would be enough to—

Wait. Shallan!

“We have to go back,” Jasnah said, spinning. “Ivory, where is the junction?”

“Ising not.”

She was able to locate the ship with ease. In Shadesmar, land and sea were reversed, so she stood on solid ground—but in the Physical Realm, Shallan and the sailors would still be in their ship. They manifest here as lights, similar to candle flames, and Jasnah thought of them as the representation of the person’s soul—despite Ivory telling her that was an extreme simplification.

They spotted the air around her, standing up on deck. That solitary flame would be Shallan herself. Many smaller lights darted beneath the ground—faintly visible through the obsidian. Fish and other sea life.

Nerves still taut, Jasnah searched around for the junction: a faint warping of the air that marked the place of her passage into Shadesmar. She could use it return to the ship, to…

One of the lights up above winked out.

Jasnah froze. “They’re being executed. Ivory! The junction.”

“Ising not junction, Jasnah,” Ivory repeated. He stood with hands clasped behind his back, wearing a sharp—yet somehow alien—suit, all black. Here in Shadesmar, it was easier to distinguish the mother-of-pearl sheen to his skin, like the colors made by oil on water.

“Not?” Jasnah said, trying to parse his meaning. She’d missed his explanation the first time. Despite their years together, his language constructions still baffled her on occasion. “But there’s always a junction…”

“Ising of you the piece to there only,” Ivory said. “Ising not today. Ising here, you. Jasnah. Ising...sorry.”

“You brought me all the way into Shadesmar,” she asked. “Now?”

He bowed his head.

For years she’d been trying to get him to bring her into his world. Though she could peek into Shadesmar on her own—and even slip one foot in, so to speak—entering fully required Ivory’s help. How had it happened? The academic wanted to record her experiences and tease out the process, so that perhaps she could replicate it. She’d used Stormlight, hadn’t she? An outpouring of it, thrust into Shadesmar. A lash which had pulling her, like gravitation from a distant place, unseen…

Memories of what happened mixed with the terror of those last minutes. She shoved both emotions and memories aside. How could she help the people on the ship? Jasnah stepped up to the light, hovering before her, lifting a hand to cup one. Shallan, she assumed, though she could not be certain. Ivory said that there wasn’t always a direct correlation between objects their manifestation in Shadesmar.

She couldn’t touch the soul before her, not completely. Its natural power repelled her hand, as if she were trying to push two pieces of magnetized stone against one another.

A sudden screech broke Shadesmar’s silence.

Jasnah jumped, spinning. It sounded a trumping beast, only overlaid by the sounds of glass breaking. The terrible noise drove a shiver up her spine. It sounded like it had come from someplace nearby.

Ivory gasped. He leaped forward, grabbing Jasnah by the arm. “Ising musting the needing of going.”

“What is that?” Jasnah asked.

 

“Grinder,” Ivory said. “Ising the calling of painspren to you.”

“Painspren are harmless.”

“Ising the side of you, harmless. Ising the side of here, harmmore. Very harmmore. Coming.” He yanked on her arm.

“Wait.”

The ship’s crew would die because of her. Storms! She had not thought that the Ghostbloods would be so bold. But what to do? She felt like a child here, newborn. Years of study had told her so little. Could she do anything to those souls above her? She couldn’t even distinguish which were the assassins and which were the crew.

The screech sounded again, coming closer. Jasnah looked up, growing tense. This place was so alien, with ridges and mountains of pure black obsidian, a landscape that was perpetually dim. Small beads of glass rolled about her feet—representations of inanimate objects in the physical realm.

Perhaps…

She fished among them, and these she could identify immediately by touch. Three plates from the galley, one bead each. A trunk holding clothing.

Several of her books.

Her hand hesitated. Oh storms, this was a disaster. Why hadn’t she prepared better? Her contingency plan in case of an assassination attempt had been to play dead, using faint amounts of stormlight from gems sewn into her hem to stay alive. But she’d foolishly expected assassins to appear in the night, strike her down, then flee. She’d not prepared for a mutiny, an assassination led by a member of the crew.

They would murder everyone on board.

“Jasnah!” Ivory said, sounding more desperate. “Ising not the musting of here! Drawing by emotions of ship, them!”

She dropped the spheres representing her books and ran her fingers through the other spheres, seeking… there. Ropes—the bonds tying the sailors as they were executed. She found a group of them and seized the spheres.

She drew in the last of her Stormlight, a few gemstones’ worth. So little.

The landscape reacted immediately. Beads on the ground nearby shivered and rolled toward her, seeking the stormlight. The calls of the painspren intensified. It was even closer now. Ivory breathed in sharply, and high above, several long ribbons of smoke descended out of the clouds and began to circle about her.

Stormlight was precious here. It was power, currency, even—perhaps—life. Without it, she’d be defenseless.

“Can I use this Light to return?” she asked him.

“Here?” He shook his head. “No. Needing musting a junction. Perpendicularity of Honor, maybe. Ising great the distance to junction. Ising being of soon, grinders!”

Jasnah gripped the beads in her hand.

“You,” she command, “will change.”

“I am a rope,” one of them said. “I am—”

“You will change.”

The ropes shivered, transforming—one by one—into smoke in the physical realm.

 

This is interesting, but I'm slightly confused; what similarities do you see here to Scadrian high imperial? Ivory's speech in this excerpt (before your changes) seems nothing like it, in my opinion. The most common feature of high imperial is turning verbs into gerunds unnecessarily (usually identified by an -ing ending). But Ivory's speech is for the most part grammatically correct: 
 

When he does err, it's usually because he's removed a verb or a direct object entirely ("A junction is not, Jasnah"); not because he's adding in unnecessary gerunds or repeating verbs (i.e. wasing the was of not). 

13 hours ago, Calderis said:

On the theory itself, I don't agree for pretty much the same reasons as @Yata

The only case of true possession I can think of in cosmere are

Mistborn spoilers 

  Reveal hidden contents

The Set's faceless immortals, and we don't know how they do it. My guess is they animate a corpse to get over most of the problems with cosmere possession. 

The closest second is Ruin controlling inquisitors directly, which took multiple spikes puncturing the sole to assert direct control. Single spiked people could only be influenced, not controlled. 

On the death rattles, I'll address them in order. 

The reference to the orders makes me see this as a Radiants perspective, not a Herald. 

I don't understand what makes this Taln? I mean, it could be, but there's nothing we've seen to distinguish anyone towards this death rattles. 

Clearly Taln. I agree. 

This one, in my opinion, no evidence,is Szeth at the end of WoR "awakening" to the fact that he was never Truthless. 

A lot of people (and I agree) have speculated that the last one is actually Nale at the end of Edgedancer. 

38 minutes ago, VirtuousTraveller said:

I'm more curious about that moment before the prologue, the one we haven't seen yet.  The one where we see what exactly a "victory" over the voidbringers actually entails.  Did it involve the complete and total destruction of every last void-bonded creature on Roshar?  Did it involve the defeat of some kind of champion?  Was this most recent victory different than desolations in the past?

I'm even more curious about the moment after the prologue, not in this current cycle of desolation, but in the desolations of the past.  Are the Heralds dramatically ripped back into their other realm?  Does this happen immediately or do they have time to help rebuild the world?  Do they make a conscious choice to return?  How often do all but one of the Heralds stay alive?

Once we have this information, then I'll react emotionally to these things we call Heralds =)

We do already have the answers to some of those questions. There is a WoB that if the heralds linger for too long after a desolation ends, a new one will begin.

It's strongly implied in the prologue that if they die, they're sent to damnation/braize automatically. So the remaining heralds that survive have to choose to return to damnation/braize (though it's still unclear how that process actually works; my guess is that they worldhop/go through shadesmar), which they didn't do last time. It's also clearly stated in the prologue that it's very rare for most/all of the heralds to survive a desolation. 

On the topic of OP's post; I do agree with others that you're being way too harsh on the heralds. If you'd ever spoken to a victim of torture (I have unfortunately spoken to and interviewed many in the course of my professional life), you'd know that extended periods of physical and emotional distress, often with very little human interaction, can severely damage - sometimes permanently - one's mental state. I've seen previously courageous, outspoken, and self-sacrificing individuals become deathly afraid of even leaving their own homes to go to the supermarket after enduring months of torture. I just don't think you understand how deeply that kind of experience can storm someone up (and I pray you never have to). Now imagine having to endure several millennia's worth of torture, over and over again, and the few moments of respite you ever get are to fight a brutal, total war that usually wipes out most of the planet's population and civilizations, after which you have to willingly volunteer yourself for several thousand more years of torture. I think even the strongest-willed human beings would break at some point, just as the heralds have. 

On 4/10/2017 at 0:46 PM, Just another guyn said:

I think we should look for hemalurgy in those expensing visions... it smells to much of what ruin did. Even if it's not physical hemalurgy.... (insert personal theory on how traumatic events cause ruptures in connections that mirror hemalurgy can sdna scars)  hemalurgy messing with renarin is exactly the kind of heart wrenching evil Brandon is capable of. 

But what attribute would a hemalurgical spike even have to steal for Renarin to have these kinds of visions? It seems very different from everything we've seen vis-a-vis Ruin's whispers (as well as Sazed's use of hemalurgy with the Kandra and Wax), in my opinion. 

42 minutes ago, stonedshaman said:

So braize is 9-centric that's interesting.  I wonder if that may be because 9 is the inverse of 6 and 6 is widely reveared as being associated with evil in wester cultures

I highly doubt it; Brandon almost never uses simplistic binaries of "good" and "evil." I'm sure once we meet Odium/Rayse in person, he'll be a more nuanced character that some may even sympathize with. There's been a lot of separate theorizing about each planetary system/shard's "number" and what each could mean. 

I think it's likely Elhokar will be a surgebinder. From what we've seen from Lift, Kaladin, and Shallan, all of them underwent some kind of severe trauma before beginning to manifest their surgebinding abilities. It's similar for all the Mistborn we saw in Era 1 (see: snapping). 

Gavilar's death could very well have been that trauma for Elhokar; but I don't really agree that he's mentally ill. I think his paranoia is fairly reasonable given the role he was prematurely thrust into, and the multiple assassination attempts he survived.

If your father had been brutally murdered, you knew that several groups of people were trying to kill you, and you also constantly saw weird mysterious spren out of the corner of your eye, wouldn't you be pretty paranoid? 

I've been wondering about this for a while, too. I'm hopeful we may get some answers in Oathbringer - I was reading one of the Dalinar flashbacks from Unfettered II, and the giant stormstriders are mentioned there too (meaning it's extremely unlikely these are voidspren or thunderclasts):

 

This is in Alethkar, not the shattered plains, so I also find it very unlikely that they are chasmfiends as Argent suggested. 

On 2/15/2017 at 9:57 PM, Extesian said:

I've wondered if this rattle has to do with whoever will be the (likely) champion of Odium.

Personally, I really love this theory from Runyan FT (from a different thread):

Quote

Established facts

1. There will be a 15 year gap between Book 5 & 6 - WoB
2. Mistborn Era 2 takes place during this gap - Coppermind Chronology
3. Chapter epitaphs have clues for future events
4. Oathpact once bound Odium to the Rosharian system, but it's questionable whether or not the Heralds broke the pact

Speculation

• Book 5 will contain the choosing of champions; Kaladin or Dalinar becomes humanity's champion but Odium pulls a fast one and designates a newborn baby as his champion, thus the following two death rattles combined:
  • "I hold the suckling child [Odium Champion] in my hands , a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw.[Humanity wants to kill the champion to end or delay the desolation / defeat Odium] So the night will reign , for the choice of honor is life "
    • Dalinar or Kaladin's oaths would never allow them to kill an innocent child "for the choice of honor is life".  Assuming the shardiac champion system is similar to that of humans, Odium and KR couldn't take action while the champion battle is undecided thus resulting in a stalemate of sorts.   Odiums survives / his preexisting influence continues [the night will reign].  Since KR won't or can't take direct action, Odium heads to Scadrial to attack Harmony (the red encroachment Harmony shows Wax).
    • The 15-year gap allows this child to grow to an age where they could serve as a protagonist, antagonist, or other important character in the second half of Stormlight.

Warbreaker spoilers below, but I freaked out and quite literally jumped out of my chair during my first readthrough of WoR when I realized that

Personally, and I have no evidence for this other than Vasher's advice to Kaladin in WoR ("do what helps you sleep at night, that's what I wish I'd done"), but I think she's dead, perhaps at his own hand. I'd love to be proven wrong, though. 

On 1/2/2017 at 1:13 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

I mean, it worked for 4500 years.

What's a couple milennia to shards, anyway? 

1 hour ago, theuntaintedchild said:

I would definitely not put it past Hoid to get eaten to avoid being found. LOL

He's just like "By Jove! I've got it they'll never suspect to find me in here!"

 

Little did we know until Arcanum Unbounded 2 that Jove has his own shardworld, called Jupiter. Khriss tells me that it is very cold and weird gaseous giants live there. 

So, something that's been tickling my mind ever since AU came out... in the Roshar essay, Khriss notes that

I think it's fair to say that most of us had surmised that Braize was Odium's shardworld, colloquially referred to as "Damnation," where the Heralds were sent to be tortured for thousands of years between Desolations. We also know from the prelude and Taln's viewpoint chapters that one of the more prominent and lovely features of Damnation is being burned alive and having your charred flesh ripped/seared off repeatedly. So, while I still think that the Braize = Damnation theory is correct, perhaps it is not in the physical realm. Could it be that Damnation is actually the cognitive aspect of Braize, one that is particularly awful and risky to traverse? That would also explain why Khriss says that "research here is difficult and dangerous." If the Cognitive Realm of Braize is this horrible, burning hellscape occupied by evil voidspren who enjoy torturing people's souls, it would probably dissuade most curious worldhoppers from poking their noses around, 

I really don't think Ashyn is Damnation, by the way.  I haven't read the Silence Divine, but we do know that no shard occupies Ashyn, and that there are still people living there in floating cities.

23 hours ago, Blightsong said:

It was confirmed recently that the 17th Shard adheres to non-intervention, so I doubt the Ghostbloods are associated.

 

Exact WoB

BRANDON SANDERSON

The 17th Shard is about nonintervention, but they're not doing so great a job, seeing as they took the common cold to Roshar.

On an unrelated note, I think it's really funny that they accidentally spread diseases around from shardworld to shardworld. I've always loved the possibilities of worldhoppers (intentionally or not) introducing new technologies, culture, etc. throughout the Cosmere.  For whatever reason, I imagine that Hoid would like chowta, and I have this very goofy image in my head of

just munching on chowta in their robes. 

All fair points. One of the reasons I think it's more likely that he actually betrayed the heralds, instead of being motivated by self-preservation, is that he seems to be by far the most knowledgeable regarding the Oathpact, surgebindings, and Desolations among the heralds. Both Nale and Jezrien are surprisingly deferential to his advice,

There's a big difference in his potentially malicious intent between the prelude, when he was theorizing that Taln alone might be able to hold the Oathpact, and the present day, when he is promising and convincing Nale that everything is okay, even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Ishar would at least have to consider the possibility that he's wrong, and the consequences if he is, but he not only denies this possibility, he actively encourages Nale to kill anyone displaying surgebinding abilities.

This is particularly strange behaviour considering the second ideal of the Bondsmiths ("I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together.") and the heavy implication that the Bondsmiths had a specific leadership role within the KR. 

Hi everyone, longtime lurker on these forums.  I was re-reading the Secret History, and I noticed a name Kelsier mentioned in passing that I had never seen anywhere else in the Scadrial books - either the original trilogy or Era 2.  

The quote is in Part 3 (Spirit), Chapter 2, as Kelsier walks across Lake Luthadel: 

Now, what the hell is 

 Is it a person? Is it a place? I use iBooks, so it was very easy to search through all of the Mistborn books for any reference to that name - this is the first and only time.  I'm not sure if this is a total red herring or irrelevant cultural thing from Era 1, but considering that Brandon is clearly expanding the map and showing us more of the world of Scadrial, could this place/person/thing be relevant in a future book?